


Superhero -*ADAPTATION*

by Writersofthegalaxy



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Non-Famous, Best Friends, Friends to Lovers, Frottage, Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Light Angst, M/M, Oral Sex, Wrestling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-14
Updated: 2020-01-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:34:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 34,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22258789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Writersofthegalaxy/pseuds/Writersofthegalaxy
Summary: It’s not easy for a young gay artist like Zayn Malik to grow up in Jefferson, Wisconsin, where all anyone seems to care about in middle school and high school are the sports teams. But Zayn was lucky. He met Liam Payne in the second grade, and they’ve been BFFs ever since. Liam is a big, beautiful boy and their school’s champion wrestler. No one messes with Liam, or with anyone close to him, and he bucks popular opinion by keeping Zayn as his wingman even after Zayn comes out at school.Their friendship survives, but Zayn’s worst enemy may be himself: he can’t seem to help the fact that he is head-over-heels in love with a hopeless case—his straight friend, Liam. Liam won’t let anything take Zayn’s friendship away, but he never counted on Zayn running off to find a life of his own. Liam will have to face the nature of their relationship if he’s to win Zayn back.***THIS IS AN ADAPTATION, ALL CREDITS TO OWNER ELI EASTON***
Relationships: Liam Payne/Original Female Character(s), Zayn Malik/Liam Payne, Zayn Malik/Original Male Character(s)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 23





	1. Introduction

MY NAME is Zayn Malik and this story is about Pin Man, my superhero. The first thing you should know is that I am the biggest, sappiest dreamer in the world. I graduated from high school in Jefferson, Wisconsin. My dad drives a truck, and my mother sells Avon and Tupperware. You’d think I would have grown up with modest ambitions, but no. Since the seventh grade, I’ve dreamt that one day I would live in Manhattan and work as a comic book artist for DC. I’ve dreamt of t raveling all over the world, maybe to comic book conventions, where I’d sit at one of those tables signing my name for fans who are as adoring and geeky as I am now. And, sappiest of all, I’ve dreamt about having Wisconsin state champion wrestler, Liam Payne, as my boyfriend.

I guess I’m an optimist. Then again, I’ve had this lucky thing going for me all my life. I know it’s not going to be easy to become a paid comic book artist, but I was born with a talent for drawing. It’s a gift, the way some people are born with lungs and musical ears that let them wail like an opera star. Others are born incredibly tall, with hands the size of dinner plates, and they’re just made to slam-dunk basketballs. And a few are born with solid, stocky frames that muscle up, a talent for strategic thinking, and a pit bull-like tenacity that allow them to become champion wrestlers. Look, personally I’ve got very little in the physical gifts department, clear? But when it comes to art, I can draw the fuck out of anything. That’s all I’m saying.

Without a doubt, the luckiest thing that ever happened to me was that I became best friends with Liam Payne.


	2. Second grade

Zayn

LIAM and I met in the second grade. Our desks, those lit t le L-shaped wooden ones with plastic chairs, were side by side in our homeroom. The first day of school, when Liam sat down next to me, I couldn’t help but stare. I think I stared at him all day long. Another kid might have smacked the shit out of me or said something like, “See something green? Pick it off!” But Liam was chill. He just looked at me every once in a while, and smiled.  
Liam was the biggest boy in our class, tall and wide. He was probably twice my body weight then, because I was a dark-haired little runt. He wasn’t fat. He was just a big kid, the kind that could be scary, the kind who could do some damage if he wanted to. But I wasn’t afraid of him. You could just tell by his eyes; Liam wasn’t like that.  
He was beautiful, with brown hair, beautiful brown eyes, and a square, perfect face. He had this glow about him, this Yoda-like centeredness, like he was cool all by himself and he didn’t care what anyone else thought. That was godlike at our age. Maybe at any age.  
Of course, I didn’t know I liked boys then. I didn’t know why I was fascinated by him. I wondered if he was really in the second grade. I wondered if he was the kid of a Norse god or something (I’d just been reading a picture book about them). Or maybe he was the son of a mob boss hiding in our lit t le school, and they just put him in second grade because there was an empty seat.  
Wherever he’d come from, I liked Liam. And I wanted Liam to like me. So I, at the ripe age of seven, set out on my very first seduction.  
See, I have this cool aunt on my mom’s side who lives in California, Aunt Beth. She makes lots of money at her job in computer games. Every birthday and Christmas she showers me with toys. Get what I mean by lucky? By second grade I had what was probably the biggest, baddest collection of action figures and Matchbox cars east of the Mississippi. Every day I’d bring some of my stuff in my bag and flaunt it in front of Liam, acting like I was perfectly happy to play with all that shiny stuff by myself.  
For a couple of days I took notice of which toys Liam looked at the most. He liked the Matchbox cars, and he particularly liked the ambulance. So one day I brought in my fire engine, ambulance, all my cop cars, and a couple of cool racers I had. At lunch time, I sat alone in the play area, unpacked them all and began zipping them around. Liam came over and sat next to me.  
“You have really neat cars,” Liam said, watching them yearningly.  
“Thanks.” I shrugged. I kept zipping the ambulance around, up and down my legs making a siren sound. I opened the back and took out the lit t le roller cot with the victim on it. I was going for the maximum drool factor.  
“Hey, I need help!” Liam suddenly said. He took one of my racers in each hand and ran them toward each other. When he banged them together, he slowed down and was careful not to actually hurt them, which was mighty fine elementary school manners.  
I smiled into his blue eyes. Those eyes stared back into mine for a few seconds, then went comically wide with a vacant glaze.  
“Help! Help! We need an ambulance!” he said in a high voice. His eyes rolled back into his head, and he shook all over.  
I put my hand over my mouth and faked a hissing sound. “Dispatch 9-1-1, please send an ambulance to Jefferson Prince Elementary School. Yes, it’s awful. There’s been a terrible accident. Body parts everywhere. I think… I think I see a glove on the monkey bars—with a

finger in it! Please, hurry!”  
I rolled the ambulance toward the gruesome scene. Liam lay down on the carpet and began jerking like he was dying. He clutched the two Matchbox racers to his chest and gurgled. “Oh my gosh! It ’s… it ’s too much!” I moaned in a deep paramedic’s voice. “We need blood plasma,stat! Call the hospital and tell them we’re coming! Call in all the doctors, and… I’m  
sorry, but you’d better notify the coroner.” (My mom loved the Discovery Channel.) Liam peeked at me from under his lashes. He looked very impressed.  
We played together until the end of lunch that day. At recess, he came right over. And the next day he brought in a few Richie Rich comics, and I brought in some action figures. We never spent one moment of school time apart for the rest of the year.  
From that day on, Liam was my best friend—jelly to my peanut butter, fellow pea in my pod, Sam to my Frodo. And I was his.


	3. Sixth grade

Zayn

SIXTH grade was the first year that had full-on team sports like football, baseball, and wrestling. Liam came from a big family of wrestlers. His brother, Charlie, had gone to state championships a few times in high school and was currently wrestling for the University of Wisconsin Badgers. That was like a Payne tradition. Liam’s dad wrestled for the Badgers in his day and so had a few of his cousins. During wrestling season, the whole clan gathered at Liam’s house to watch the UW Badgers on some weird channel like ESPN-102. Payne was a name Wisconsin knew well.  
That year, I became the pet project of my art teacher. She gave me a couple of books on drawing comic book figures and worked with me all year on it for extra credit. That was the year Liam and I did issue #1 of Pin Man and Pencil Boy. And Liam became the top ranked sixth-grade wrestler in our division, statewide.  
My parents loved Liam. He was that good-looking, quiet kid who acted like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth and said “Yes, ma’am” and “No, sir” when talking to adults. That was just the way his family was. When we were goofing off too loud and our parents yelled, he was the one who insisted we stop. He always took his glass to the sink and rinsed it out. I mean, the kid was a parent’s wet dream.  
We hung out together at school, studied together afterward, and had sleepovers a few times a week. We only lived a mile apart, so if no one was around to drive us we could walk it . By the time we were ten, we’d ditched the Matchbox cars and played video games, read comics, and played board games. Sometimes we’d make home movies, stupid stuff like competitions to make the funniest face or fake news reports about alien invasions. And then there was Pin Man and Pencil Boy, which was destined to take on a life of its own.  
My house was within walking distance of the school, and I went to all the home wrestling matches. I think my mom and dad were glad to see me taking any interest in sports whatsoever. Normally I’d rather read comics, play video games, or draw than do anything involving large muscle groups and sweat. Of course, they knew I went to support Liam, but maybe they hoped the machismo of it would rub off on me somehow. I can say, without a doubt, that those wrestling matches were highly influential in my young life.  
After home matches, Liam’s parents let him walk home with me and sleep over, even though they were always at the match and could have driven him home. I think it was a special treat, like, “We’re thrilled to our marrow with you, you wrestling godling, so we’ll tolerate you spending the night with that skinny kid you like so much. Have fun!”  
At Liam’s matches, I sat by myself in the bleachers and ate popcorn. I would normally be a top-of-the-bleachers kind of guy, but at wrestling I liked to sit close, close enough to smell the sweat and see it dampen the wrestler’s scoop-necked singlets. It was easy to get a good seat, because not that many people came to the sixth grade matches. Wrestling was a big hairy deal in Wisconsin, kind of like soccer, football, and the Knights of the Round Table all rolled into one. But in middle school it was not yet the scream fest it would become later on. About the only people who wanted to watch eleven-year-old boys grab each other’s legs and necks and lay on top of each other were the most dedicated of parents and the occasional sports reporter or high school coach scouting out future prospects. Oh, and other eleven-year- old boys who might, or might not, be gay. That would be me.  
That year, watching sixth grade wrestling, was the first time I had any serious bouts of those odd, fluttery feelings and t ingles. I didn’t know what it was at first. I just knew that I really liked wrestling. And I really, really liked to watch Liam wrestle. Part of me wanted to be the   
other guy, the one he was wrestling. That made no sense, because I was to a wrestler what a rubber ducky is to a Christmas goose, body-type-wise. There is no way I would ever go out for the sport. And even if I did, I wouldn’t be in Liam’s weight class. But it was hard to shake that feeling of wishing I was the one in the ring with him, that I was the one he was pushing down.  
The thing is, Liam and I did wrestle, lots of times. We were always horsing around, just stupid stuff like Liam throwing me into the pool in his backyard or “say uncle” types of strangleholds. But once he started wrestling, he’d use real wrestling moves on me, which had me down and helpless in about two seconds flat. He was forever grabbing me and pinning me. He thought it was great fun to hold me down and tickle me until I begged for mercy. That was okay. Even if I couldn’t physically beat him, I had my own superpowers. In retaliation I’d dump a cold beverage on him when he least expected it, put salt in his chocolate milk or hide his underwear when he was in the shower. I was nothing if not inventive. He was the warrior, and I was the rogue. So he knew he could only go so far before risking unpleasant retribution. You could say we had our own balance of power.  
But watching him wrestle was different than any of that. Maybe it was because I could see him from a distance, his bare legs and arms, toned and lightly muscular, his chest and stomach and thighs under that tight singlet, his butt when he was on top of the other guy, using all his weight and leverage to try to keep him down. And then there was just his beauty and strength, and the way he just went for it and never, ever wavered.  
The first time I ever got hard from sexual arousal, as opposed to just waking up that way or it coming on like some random freak show, was while watching Liam wrestle in sixth grade. The opposing team was Wisconsin Hills and Liam’s opponent was a pretty good athlete. Liam had to work hard for a pin, scrambling over him with his groin on the guy’s butt. I started to feel a little breathless as I watched, and then fluttery, and then sort of hot. The next thing I knew my jeans were tight in the crotch, and I almost came in my pants.  
I felt humiliated and ashamed. I put my jacket over my lap and looked around, t rying to see if anyone else reacted like that. It sure didn’t look like it . And when they separated, Liam and the other guy didn’t seem to have that problem either. I mean, it would have been obvious in that Lycra.  
After that, I usually got boners at wrestling matches. I started to think that maybe there was something different about me. And that maybe my friendship with Liam was a lot more complicated than I’d thought it was. I had a pretty good idea that I shouldn’t want the things that were starting to itch around inside me. I heard other guys talk about girls, and I wondered when I would start feeling that way about them.  
But I kept my worries to myself all that year. Until that summer, no one knew what was going on in my head, not even Liam. And he knew everything about me.

Pin Man and Pencil Boy Issue #1  
Art by Zayn Malik. Story by Liam Payne.

Second prize winner in the Wisconsin Middle School Art Competition, 2006  
Panel #1—Students look around in alarm as the sound of screams echoes through the hallway at Jefferson Columbus Middle School.  
Panel #2—Bruce and Peter are walking out of class with their books. They look at each other in alarm. Bruce: “What’s going on, Peter?” Peter: “I don’t know, but I think we’d better head to the locker room!”  
Panel #3—In the hallway, zombie jocks in football uniforms from Altoona Middle School are attacking and biting Columbus students. It’s chaos! Evil Altoona principal, Train-Mor, stands in the middle shouting orders. Train-Mor: “Get the big, blond guy! No, the blond! Dang it, I should have zombified the math club instead!”  
Panel #4—Pin Man and Pencil Boy burst from the locker room. Pin Man: “We’re under

attack!” Pencil Boy: “Ready when you are, Pin Man!”  
Panel #5—Pin Man pins a zombie football player against a locker. All around him, previously pinned zombies lay in a stupor. Pin man: “Pinned you now, you carrion- breathed meathead!”  
Panel #6—Pencil Boy uses the eraser end of his sonic pencil to erase a zombie, who screams as he vanishes. Pencil Boy: “There are too dang many of them, Pin Man! Erasing takes too long!”  
Panel #7—The duo is approached on all sides by dozens of zombie football players. Train-Mor stands to one side laughing manically. Train-Mor: “You two are no match for my mind-controlled hordes! You’re doomed, DOOMED!”  
Panel #8—Pin Man and Pencil Boy are back-to-back trying to protect each other. Narrator bar: “Is this the end for Columbus Middle School’s greatest heroes?” Pin Man: “I’m sorry I can’t get you out of this, Peter.” Pencil Boy (thought balloon): “I have to think of something. I can’t let Pin Man down!”  
Panel #9—A light bulb goes off over Pencil Boy’s head. Panel #10—Close-up of Pencil Boy as he draws furiously.  
Panel #11—Wide hall shot. Principal Train-Mor is dressed as a circus clown with a rainbow fuzzy wig, huge red nose, and a yellow-and-red costume. He’s looking down at himself, arms held wide. Train-Mor: “What did you do to me? I hate clowns! No. NOOOO!”  
Panel #12—Exterior of school. Train-Mor is running away awkwardly in big floppy shoes followed by the slobbering zombies.  
Panel #13—Principal Derth hands Pin Man and Pencil Boy a trophy while they smile with teeth-glints for the camera, arms around each other’s shoulders. Derth: “You two saved the school! Please take this token of our esteem as well as… a week off your classes!”  
Panel #14—Bruce and Peter sit in Bruce’s room playing with video controllers. Bruce: “Somehow, these shooters just aren’t as exciting as they used to be.” Peter: “I know, Bruce. I know.”


	4. Seventh Grade

Zayn

MY HOUSE had the best toys, but during the summers, we spent a lot of time at Liam’s house. It was nicer, with a pool table in the basement and a deck and barbecue grill out back. But its big draw was the in-ground pool in the backyard.  
We were twelve the summer before seventh grade, and we spent most of our days out there. We had badminton, balls, Frisbees, and huge water guns. Half the time we played with them in the water. We played Phase 10 on towels at the edge of the pool. We endlessly brainstormed story ideas for issues of Pin Man and Pencil Boy.  
Both of Liam’s parents worked, and his brother was in Madison for the summer, so during the day it was just us. It was the first summer his parents had let us stay home without a sitter, which was amazingly cool. Yeah, we were getting older, but also, Liam was already on his way to becoming a wrestling star. Liam’s dad was so happy with him, we were granted a lot of freedom.  
At this point, Liam wrestled the way a new drummer tapped on things or the way I doodled. That is to say, all the t ime. He was forever grabbing me and doing a pretend headlock or body tuck. He thought it was great fun to pick me up and toss me in the pool. At least he would hold me and say “Ready? Ready?” to make sure I didn’t get water up my nose. And really, I kind of liked it . If things got a little frisky down there, the cold water usually took care of it .  
But this one day, it all came to a head, all the stuff I’d been worrying about and trying to hide. We were waist deep in the water and batting a volleyball around.  
“Sandman doesn’t count ,” Liam argued. “Sandman is, like, an elemental or a god.  
Superman is just some dude from another planet .”  
Liam dove for the ball when I went a bit wide, and he batted it back to me. We were t rying to see how long we could keep it in play.  
“So? It doesn’t matter where they’re from. The point is, Sandman could beat Superman because all he has to do is make him fall asleep.”  
We’d had a running bet for a few days about whether or not anyone could beat Superman without resorting to kryptonite or threatening to blow up the world or kill Lois Lane or something. I’d bet that I could figure out a way, and I was sure I had it .  
“Superman doesn’t need sleep, doofus,” Liam said, tapping the ball right to me.  
“Maybe he doesn’t have to sleep, but he can. Don’t you remember that whole series where he was in a dream that he was normal?” Tap.  
“Oh, yeah,” Liam admitted. Tap.  
“So. Superman can sleep, and if he can then Sandman could make him sleep.” “But they’re not even in the same universe! So it doesn’t count .”  
“They are too! They’re both in the DC Universe. ’Member that Sandman issue where Wanda dreams about Bizarros—Superman fights them in his comic. If a Sandman character can dream about a villain that Superman fights, they’re in the same universe.”  
I knew I had him, and I could see by his face that he knew it , too. In my moment of t riumph, I hit the volleyball too hard and sent it sailing to the left, out of bounds of the pool. “Oops,” I said.  
“Penalty!” Liam shouted, just before he plowed into me.  
Liam is not a dumb jock. In fact, he’s pretty smart. But when backed into a corner in an argument he often resorted to the physical. That was nothing new.  
That day, however, when he pinned me up against the tile wall of the pool, all wet and

slippery, with just his swim trunks and mine between us—pinned me there knee to shoulder and held me, with his head tucked into my neck—well, something inside me snapped. I raised the flag so fast my head spun, and I grabbed him around his waist before I even realized what I was doing. Seriously, I claim complete disassociation from my actions on that day. My mind was not driving the car. If you doubt me, try being a twelve-year-old boy with your biggest sexual fantasy pinning you against a wall mostly naked in a pool, and then tell me I’m lying.  
I think I moaned, or made some kind of scary sexual sound, and then I grabbed his neck with one hand, pulled his head up and kissed him. This was my first kiss ever, but the primitive brain is a powerful thing. It didn’t matter that I had no clue what I was doing. I had my mouth on his and my tongue thrust deep with no conscious thought whatsoever.  
For one brief, shining moment, I kissed Liam and Liam kissed me back. He kept pressing me against that wall and he even got hard. But then, he was twelve years old, too. His mouth under mine was so hot and sweet and sexy I could barely stand it . I thrust my tongue against his. My legs wrapped around him like I was a freaking monkey. I pressed into him as if he was an invisible barrier and I was trying to go through it . They ground together, his stiffy and mine, and I starting rocking my hips against him. It was incredible. It felt like soaring, like that scene in Superman Returns where Brandon Routh shoots straight up into the stratosphere like a bullet. I probably would have come like that in about another twenty seconds, right there in the pool.  
But after our dicks made contact, something in Liam woke up. He thrust me off him, really hard, and held me at arm’s length, his elbows locked.  
For a long minute we just looked at each other. I had my head in the clouds until the look of shock on his face finally got through the freaking cupids and singing birds and stuff. My stomach dropped like a stone. I clapped a hand over my mouth as if I could take back what it had just done.  
“Oh God,” I said, through my fingers. “I am. I’m gay.”  
I had been playing with the idea for a while. But at that moment there was no fucking doubt about it . I wanted Liam. Heck, I would have done anything he asked me to, and said “please” before and “thank you very much” after. Repeatedly. His hard, boy’s body was everything I could ever dream of. Done.  
Liam looked at me for long enough without speaking that the emotion battling on his face began to scare me. Liam and I had always been able to share everything, and I’d just blurted it out. Was it too much? Was he disgusted?  
“Please don’t hate me,” I said, feeling horribly cold. “Please. Because if you hate me, I don’t think I can stand it.”  
“I… don’t hate you,” he said in a rough voice. “I’m just surprised. But Zayn, you can never,  
ever do that to me again.” I’d never heard him sound like that, so grim, so final.  
“I won’t, I swear! I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened,” I babbled. At that point I would have promised anything as long as he didn’t cast me off like a favorite shoe that had something foul sticking to its bottom.  
Liam didn’t want me the way I wanted him. He didn’t like boys. That was bearable. But I would die if I lost my best friend.

WE RECOVERED from that moment, but it was awkward for a while. It took t ime before Liam would touch me again, but he did. He didn’t pin me like before, and he was always careful not to bring certain “no fly zone” areas of his into contact with the corresponding areas of mine. But he’d punch my arm, swing me around, give my shoulders a hug. It was like he wanted to show me that nothing had changed. He told me in a hundred ways without ever saying a word, It’s okay, Zayn. I get who you are, and I don’t have a problem with it. We’re still Sam and Frodo, Pin Man and Pencil Boy.  
Which is unbelievably freaking mature for a twelve-year-old straight boy whose lifelong BFF turned out gay and t ried to rub off on him in a pool, if you really think about it .


	5. Sophomore Year

Liam

I MET Emily in the first week of classes our sophomore year. Everyone had two options in English that year—an English Lit class or Creative Writing. You’d think Creative Writing would be a free pass, but it was just the opposite. The teacher, Mr. Federman, was really gung ho. During the fall semester you had do a partial screenplay, a couple of short stories, and a novel outline and first chapter. And he was a hard-ass grader. As a rule, jocks avoided the class like the plague.  
I was always busy in the fall with practice, and then the wrestling season started after Thanksgiving, so I didn’t need the extra work. But I’d been writing a lot with Zayn, working on Pin Man and Pencil Boy and some movies and stuff, and I really liked it . Zayn and I figured one of us should take the class just to improve our mad skills, and since I was the writer, that person ended up being me.  
The first day of class Mr. Federman told us we’d be assigned a partner who would be our beta reader, and that person would also be our “cowriter“ for the big final project. He read off the assignments—my partner was Emily Abrams.  
When he read it off, Emily and I looked at each other with mutual horror, and I inwardly groaned. I’d seen her around, and my impression had always been that she had a huge chip on her shoulder. She was one of those brainy girls who hated jocks on principle. She was petite with straight brown hair and these huge black glasses. They made her look like Simon, the chipmunk. She had a pixieish face with a pointed chin, dark eyes and a lit t le cupid’s bow mouth. From the t imes I’d heard her speak, what came out of that mouth was usually very loud and very sarcastic.  
We were made to pair up with our partners and talk about our “writing experience and dreams.” About now, I was really wishing I’d opted for English Lit. I sat down next to her with about as much enthusiasm as I have for my mom’s monthly liver and onions dinner. But the first thing that came out of Emily’s mouth was the last thing I expected.  
“You’re friends with Zayn Malik, right?” Emily looked at me with interest. “Um… yeah. He’s my best friend.”  
Emily got a silly smile on her face. It totally erased her cynical actitude and made her look almost sweet. “Oh my God, he is so cute. And he’s crazy talented. I’ve seen his stuff in the hallways outside the art room.” She suddenly looked horrified and put her hand over her mouth. “God, I just outted myself as a stalker.”  
I laughed and gave her a big smile.  
It was Twilight Zone weird, but really nice, to have a girl asking me about Zayn. I was the number one wrestler in the state for my grade during all three years of middle school. Last year was my first year in the high school ranking, and I’d come in second in the 170-pound weight class for our division. The guy who was number one was a senior. I was doing better than anyone in my family had ever done. But with that success came a lot of pressure. The entire cheerleading squad seemed determined to pin me to the mat and claim victory. There had even been cat fights about me in the cafeteria, and I wasn’t even dating any of them yet. It was getting dicey. I really needed to find a girlfriend.  
To be honest, while I thought the cheerleaders were hot, they scared the shit out of me. They were so bitchy and cliquish and way too pushy. Emily didn’t know who I was, or if she did, she was unimpressed. I liked that. Maybe I was just the kind of guy who wanted to be the chaser rather than the chasee. Besides, if there was a secret way to my heart, it was Zayn.

“Yeah, Zayn… he’s amazing,” I said enthusiastically. “You should see the comic work he does. You know, he has over five thousand followers on tumblr.”  
“He does? What’s the URL?” Emily was all over it . I gave her the info.  
Then it hit me—where I’d noticed Emily before. “Hey, you’re one of those spelling bee kids, right?”  
She got all cold and tight again, like I was going to make fun of her. “Yeah, so?” I shrugged. “You got to travel a lot with that, huh? That must have been fun.” She looked wary. “We went to Montreal and New York City.”  
“Nice! That’s one of the things I really like about wrestling.” She looked at me dubiously.  
“So… that must mean you’re a really good speller.”  
She snorted. “Wow. Brilliant deduction. You’ve got it going on for a jock.”  
I just laughed. “What I mean is, Zayn and I do this comic called Pin Man and Pencil Boy. That’s what we post on tumblr. He draws it and I write it , but I kind of suck at spelling and grammar. We could use an editor.”  
“Seriously?” Emily’s eyes lit up.  
“Yeah, if you want. It ’s sort of a satire. Superhero stuff. You might not be into it ,” I warned  
her.  
“That’s fine,” she said. “I like pop satire.” I could see she was thinking about how maybe  
she’d get to be around Zayn. She couldn’t care less about being around me. Which was way cool.  
My best friend was coming into his own lately, and I was happy for him. In the past year, Zayn’s body had changed so fast his mother complained she couldn’t keep him in clothes. The dude ate 24/7 just trying to keep up with it . At the start of eighth grade he was a few inches shorter than me. But now he was just a few inches shorter. His face had gotten larger, and his chin squarer. He still had dark, shaggy hair and big brown eyes, of course. But his sort of boy-band cuteness was becoming more mature. He was still more pretty than butch—at least compared to the guys in wrestling. And his slim physique was even slimmer now that his body had shot up. His shoulders had broadened and were almost as wide as mine, but he was super slender. I’d seen him without a shirt plenty of times, and you couldn’t count his ribs or anything, but the guy had no fat on him whatsoever.  
Personally, I envied his body. Coach was always on me to add more muscle mass. We’d discussed me going up to the 182 weight class, and I’d probably do that next year, which meant even more bulk. Zayn had no reason to bulk up, and he didn’t like working out. When I did at home, he’d spot me and just yack, sometimes swing around a light barbell or something just goofing off. He really didn’t need to work out. He was so lean he looked good in anything. And the way he wore his hip-rider jeans so low you could see his underwear—it was way cooler than most guys. I could never pull off a look like that.  
“I can introduce you to Zayn if you want ,” I offered.  
“Yeah?” Emily looked at me critically. “Do you think he’d go for me? What’s his type?”  
My face heated. By now, Zayn’s type was a given, at least when it came to the most important bit. He got issues of GQ magazine from the library—the dude was a total clothes horse—and sometimes he’d point out male models he thought were really hot. And sometimes I’d point out girls and ask what he thought. He’d say things like “Nah, she looks like a bitch,” or “You can do better,” or “Yeah, you should go for it .” But it was always clear he himself had no interest at all. But it wasn’t my place to tell Emily or anyone else what wound Zayn’s clock.  
“Hmmm. Honestly, uh, I don’t think you’re his type,” I stammered lamely.  
“Oh.” Emily’s face fell. She pursed her lips and got kind of a strange resignation on her face. “Oh. Damn.”  
“But you’re really pretty and smart. I’m sure there are lots of guys who would go for you.” I was almost surprised to find that I meant it .  
She looked at me quizzically for a moment and then she checked me out. No kidding, she looked me up and down with no subtlety whatsoever. When she got back up to my eyes she smiled.

Zayn

FIRST match of the wrestling season, sophomore year. Boo-yah. Liam had asked me to sit with Emily, show her the ropes. I was really thrilled about that, not, but I couldn’t say no. Now that we were in high school, and Liam was such a freaking star, the home matches were a zoo—all the bleachers packed and people crowding the gym doors. It could be a lit t le intimidating. I’d told Emily in e-mail that it was customary to dress as ridiculously as possible. I, myself, always wore three gold streaks across each cheek, a gold school shirt, and special gold Converse tennies. I also had gold glitter bouncy balls on a headband which I let Emily wear since she was not yet equipped with the appropriate amount of team spirit.  
We stopped to say hello to Liam’s mom and dad and about ten of his cousins. His mom hugged me and then hugged Emily, which made me a lit t le annoyed since I’d been around forever and she’d only been around a few months but, whatever.  
We squeezed into a space on the third bleacher. “Is it safe sitting this close?” she asked worriedly.  
“It ’s not like there’s a ball that can hit you,” I said. “Though you might get flung with some sweat if you’re really having a bad day.”  
“Oh.” She looked vaguely disgusted. “I’m kidding, Emily.”  
The team came out. As usual, Liam was announced last of the sophomores. When he came out the crowd went nuts. We stood up and screamed with everyone else.  
She grabbed my arm and leaned in. “Damn! He’s really popular,” she said, her eyes wide. I looked at her in disbelief. “Emily, do you have any idea who you’re dating?”  
She looked a lit t le dazed and didn’t answer.  
The first round of bouts was never that exciting since they were between the lower- ranked athletes. But Emily watched the boys trying to out dominate each other with a kind of mute fascination. I couldn’t see Liam very well—he was sitting down—so I idly looked over the other athletes on the floor.  
Emily whispered in my ear. “So which of the Altoona wrestlers do you think is the hottest?” I choked on my Coke, causing several people in our vicinity to give me the hairy eyeball.  
She pounded my back.  
“What did you say?” I finally gasped.  
She rolled her eyes. “Please! Like I don’t know. Did you know that I actually liked you first? And I asked Liam about you, and he was all, like, ‘well, er, um, er, I don’t think you’re his type.’” Her imitation of a bashful Liam was priceless. I had to laugh.  
“Are you serious? You liked me first?”  
“Oh, yeah. I had a big crush on you all last year. You’re totally cute, and jocks aren’t normally my thing. But, ya know, it ’s kind of hard to argue with that.”  
She pointed to where Liam was now standing on the sidelines. Our high school singlets were gold and scooped low in the back. Liam’s back was broad and strong, sculpted with muscle. It V’d to a tight waist and a luscious bubble butt, thighs thick and round with muscles and shapely calves. Add shoulder-length blond hair and blue eyes, and I seriously could not imagine anything on Earth more perfect.  
“Fuck, yeah,” I said breathily. It just came out. I looked at her to see if she’d be pissed or shocked, but she just snorted in amusement.  
“Sheesh, Zayn. Thank God he’s not gay, that’s all I can say. But hey, it ’s totally cool with me that you are. I think it ’s awesome to have a gay friend. And don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.”  
She really did seem fine with it , which was kind of perplexing. The only person who knew I was gay was Liam, but I worried a lot about what other people would think when they found

out.

Then again, Emily could afford to be generous. She got Liam.  
“Number seven,” I said, nudging her arm. Across the gym floor, in a white singlet, number

seven was strutting back and forth wearing his head protector. He wasn’t huge like some of the guys, just muscled and tight. You could count his six-pack through the Lycra. He had sandy blond hair that stuck out from around his head gear. Maybe I’d draw him into our next issue. I could picture him as a Silver Surfer type, only a real California surfer dude. My fingers itched for a pencil and paper.  
“He’s totally hot ,” Emily agreed. She looked him over, and her eyes grew wide. I knew what she was staring at. Even from across the arena, you could make out the size and shape of his package. “Christ, that’s obscene.”  
“Clearly, this is your first wrestling match,” I said dryly. “But… why don’t they wear something underneath?”  
“Liam says it ’s a macho thing. Guys who wear straps or cups are considered lame. I guess it ’s like gladiator mentality. Burp, fart, sweat, let it all hang out .”  
She blinked as if trying to clear the smut from her eyes. “God, Zayn, how can you stand  
it?”  
“Disassociation,” I said archly. “I’ve trained myself not to think about it . I am in control at all  
times.”  
She looked at me with an arched brow, oh really?  
I coughed and looked away. “And, uh, it helps to wear long T-shirts.”  
She snorted as she glanced at my lap where my long gold JEFFERSON T-shirt was doing its duty as emergency backup. I didn’t always get hard at wrestling matches anymore, but when I did, I preferred to hide it under 100 percent cotton.  
“TMI, but… yeah, okay. I guess there are certain advantages to being a girl,” Emily said.  
I looked at Liam and thought, with not a small amount of bitterness, now that’s the fucking understatement of the year, sweetheart.  
I honestly tried not to think about making out with Liam all the time. For one thing, it was pathetic, and for another thing, it was needles-in-your-eye torture. We spent so much time together, and most of the time I didn’t let my head go there. But I was crazy about him, and the fact that he was so gorgeous didn’t help. When I was alone jerking off, I let myself imagine things. I’d spun that one kiss in the pool into so many variations I could probably claim a Guinness World Record for Most Exhausted Fantasy. I didn’t make things any easier on myself, I guess, but it was hard to resist the temptation. And now I was sitting next to Liam’s girlfriend. Good times. With every fiber of my being I wanted to hate Emily, but I had to admit she was actually pretty nice and sort of funny.  
Liam had an important bout tonight. He was going up against a wrestler who was ranked third in the state in Liam’s weight class. The guy would be gunning for Liam, and if Liam lost it had the potential to knock him down in the year-end rankings. I could see that he was intensely focused as the time came closer for his match. He didn’t pace on the sidelines like some wrestlers. Instead he stood still and turned inward. I could see his face and shoulders set, his fists flex. He was building himself up to the kind of tenacity he was known for. Pitbull Payne.  
They called the match, and the crowd stood and cheered for both wrestlers. Liam went out immediately with his focused-killer look, and in a moment they were on the mat. There was silence except for the squeak of their shoes on the gym floor when they dug in for purchase. It was so quiet, you could hear Liam and his opponent’s heavy breathing. Emily clutched at my arm, giving me a nice half round of fingernail impressions. I’d probably need a tetanus shot, but what the hell. The bout was intense. I grabbed her back.  
Come on, Liam. Come on, Liam. Come on, Liam. It was my lucky mantra, and I kept chanting it over and over in my head.  
He had the advantage, starting on top. But after several long minutes of struggling to get the guy off his hands and knees, his opponent reversed and flipped him. Liam landed on his side and scrambled for his knees, barely avoiding going onto his back. The guy was on top of

him but Liam heaved with all his strength and lift ed the guy completely off the floor. When he came down he managed to slip his left arm out of the guy’s grasp, do a cutback and get out from under. A few minutes later, the guy was down and then—pinned.  
The place went crazy as the ref took Liam’s wrist and held it up. Liam was still completely focused, but he shook his head and managed to give the crowd a smile and a fist pump.  
Emily looked at me, her jaw dropped open. Oh my God, she mouthed in total disbelief.  
I looked away and did a two-finger whistle for Liam, jumped up and down and waved to him energetically. He looked right at me and gave me a grin.  
That, Emily Abrams, is who you—apparently beloved by the gods—are dating. That is my hero.

WE STAYED in our seats while the bulk of the crowd filed out. I always waited for Liam to shower and change. As usual, he was going to spend the night at my place. Emily stayed, too, and Liam’s parents came down and stood with us.  
Liam came out, damp and crazy happy.  
His dad slapped him on the back. His mom hugged him. Liam hugged Emily and gave her a quick kiss. I looked away.  
“Great match, son! You did great! Loved that cutback.” “Thanks, Dad.”  
“We’re so proud of you! We’ll see you after school tomorrow, alright?” His mom kissed him good-bye. She turned to me. “And good night to you too, Zayn.” She kissed my cheek.  
I appreciated the fact that she made it a point to include me as always. “Bye, Mr. and Mrs.  
Payne,” I said.  
Liam’s folks left.  
“My mom’s going to pick me up by the sign,” Emily said.  
“I’ll meet you back at my place,” I offered. I figured they needed some alone time, and I liked seeing the two of them together about as much as I liked slamming my finger in my locker.  
“No, I’ll walk with you,” Liam insisted. “Come on. Let’s go out and wait for Emily’s mom.” He slung one arm around my shoulder and one around hers. Great.  
It would have made too big a deal out of it to refuse, so I went along. We walked out to the big high school sign, me in my long Constantine-like trench coat and Liam in his letter jacket. I felt stupid.  
Emily’s mom wasn’t there yet, and we waited in the cold. I wanted to give them some privacy, but I wasn’t sure how to go about it since there was really nothing around the sign except for parking lots. I wandered over and hopped up on the cement foot of the sign. I took out my iPod and messed around.  
When I looked up, Liam was kissing Emily. They were front-to-front, hugging tight, and it was a serious, French kiss. Deep inside me there was a sharp pain that radiated outward and throbbed in my head and my heart.  
Yeah, so I knew he was dating Emily and that we’d never be like that. That didn’t mean it didn’t hurt like a motherfucker.  
I stared back down at my iPod, my eyes hot, until a car pulled up. I blinked furiously. I heard Emily yell, “Good night, Zayn!”  
“Night!” I called out, not looking up. They drove off, and I hopped down and started walking toward my house, fast. I didn’t wait for Liam.  
He caught up to me. “Man! Was that a great match or what?” He was bouncing on pure adrenaline like always after he wrestled. He jumped up and down on his toes.  
“You did good,” I said tightly.  
Liam grinned. “Hey, it means a lot to me that you and Emily get along, you know?”

I shrugged. I wouldn’t look at him.  
“You do like her, right?” He put his arm around my shoulder. I scooted out from under it , not wanting him to touch me. But I pretended I just wanted to veer around a fire hydrant that was coming up.  
“I’m glad you’re not dating Jennifer Conners or anyone like her.” It wasn’t the best answer, but it was all I had.  
Jennifer was head cheerleader for the wrestling squad and a gorgeous bitch on wheels. The fact that Liam had ended up dating nerdy Emily Abrams and not someone like Jennifer had everyone in our school baffled. Well, maybe everyone but me.  
“And?” Liam prompted, lightly punching my arm.  
“And… you picked a good one, I guess.” I shrugged as if it didn’t matter, but it cost me. I was still feeling really hurt.  
The fire hydrant was long gone, and I had no excuse to pull away when Liam came closer and put his arm around my shoulder. He pulled me in with a concerned look. “Hey, you know you’re my best friend, and you always will be, right?”  
“That’s not the way it works, Liam. Someday, when you meet a girl you’re really crazy about, she’s going to expect to be your best friend.”  
“Well, she won’t be. You will,” Liam insisted firmly, as if he just didn’t get it . “No girl is ever going to mean as much to me as you do, Zayn.”  
As much as I knew that was a pipe dream, his words, and his arm around my shoulder, did make me feel better. The hurt in my chest loosened its grip and began to fade. I never could stay mad at him for long.  
“You’re a dork,” I said.  
“If I’m a dork, then you’re a bigger dork for being friends with me.”  
“It doesn’t work that way. It ’s not like people exude a dork ray or something. Well, sometimes you do, but I’m immune.”  
“Oh, I see. You do know that you’re the king of dorks and that this conversation is absurd.” “No,” I insisted. “It ’s physically impossible to be both a dork and gay. It ’s like saying you’re color blind and blind. The universe will only allow so much disadvantage in any one given life-  
form.”  
Liam laughed. “You are so full of shit. You have been, and are, both a dork and gay, and frequently are in the same sentence.” He squeezed my shoulder but didn’t let go. He seemed content to walk like that all the way to my house. It was like he knew I needed him to show that he still cared about me.  
I leaned my head down against his shoulder.   
“Whatever,” I said, the final thrust in any argument. Liam seemed to understand and stopped talking.


	6. Junior Year

Zayn

THE second week of our junior year, the principal called an emergency assembly the period before lunch. Rumors had been flying around, so I had a feeling I knew what this was about.  
Liam and I always met at my locker between classes and for lunch—mainly because there were too many people who bothered him at his locker. He was waiting for me there, and we walked to the gym together.  
“Think this is about Raymond Toleman?” he asked me, his face grim. “Probably. I wonder if they’ll tell us what happened.”  
The rumor was that a senior, Raymond Toleman, had been found dead in his room by his mother yesterday morning. He’d hung himself.  
“Did you know him?” I asked Liam.  
He shook his head. “Not really.” But there was something up. He had a tight jaw and a little crease on his forehead—he had that look when something was really bothering him.  
“I’m sensing a subplot here,” I said.  
He shook his head a lit t le. “He came to a lot of the wrestling matches and some of the guys gave him a hard time, that’s all.”  
I remembered seeing Raymond at the wrestling matches. He always sat in the first bleacher, close to the team, but I’d never paid much attention. Raymond was the kind of kid who was born with a “kick me” sign pasted on the back of his shirt by life. He was small, stuttered badly, had greasy hair and glasses about two inches thick. I’d never seen him in anything but the same plaid shirt and brown pants. I guess he had some kind of learning disability or something. I didn’t know much about him.  
The gym was pretty crowded when we got there. Liam and I grabbed a couple of the chairs they’d put in the middle of the gym floor. Emily waved to us from the bleachers, and we waved back.  
Liam was right; the assembly was about Raymond Toleman. Principal Meyers looked pissed as he gave all six hundred of us kids a chunk of his cerebral cortex. It seemed things were pretty bad for Raymond. A bunch of kids had befriended him on Facebook and then posted crap on his page. His money was routinely “borrowed” and his locker trashed. He was shoved, insulted, and harassed. The incident that had apparently been the last straw for old Ray was when some football players had shoved him into a puddle the week before near the football field—and held him down. He liked to sit on the bleachers and watch practice. Apparently the football players considered being watched by some poor lonely kid a personal insult. No one would admit which of the football players had done it , so the entire team was being put on three-day suspension. Two days after the puddle incident, Raymond Toleman killed himself.  
Principal Meyers didn’t pull any punches, and by the time he was done, I think everyone in the auditorium, at least everyone who was not a total dickhead, felt sorry and ashamed. I did, and I didn’t even know the kid. Liam was sitting there, his hands clenched in his lap and his face bright red. I could almost feel the heat radiating off him. He was seriously tweaked. I wanted to pat his shoulder or something, but that wasn’t a great idea in the middle of assembly, even if some of the girls were crying on each other’s shoulders. I gave him a shoulder bump instead. He t ried to give me a smile, but it was about as convincing as cat whiskers on a dog.  
Meyers gave us a come-to-Jesus speech about Jefferson being the kind of high school we

could be proud of, about looking out for one another and showing kindness and humility and all of that. Then Mrs. Fishbinder came up and announced a new zero-tolerance policy for bullying and the formation of an anti-bullying club. The adults were taking this really seriously, and I was glad. Sometimes the crap you saw in the halls made you want to puke. I’d never been subjected to a lot of it myself because of Liam, but I’d seen it . Too bad it was too late for Raymond Toleman.  
As we filed out for lunch, I tried to get Liam to talk to me. “What’s up, Pin Man?” I bumped his shoulder.  
Liam looked around and then tilt ed his head. We went out the front door, and he didn’t say anything, just headed for his t ruck.  
Liam and I had both gotten our driver’s licenses over the summer. His dad had gotten him a used Chevy pickup. It had over a hundred thousand miles on it , and it wasn’t pretty, but Liam loved that truck. We both climbed in. I leaned back against the door and waited for him to talk. His face was still red, and he looked really upset.  
“Do you know who pushed Raymond in that puddle?” I guessed.  
He shook his head. “No, but it could just as easily have been our guys.” I knew he meant the wrestlers. “Some of the guys got pretty rude with Ray—knocking off his glasses, pushing him on the bleachers, calling him faggot, stuff like that .”  
I felt a little nauseous. He glanced at me guiltily.  
“He wasn’t gay. I guess. He was just… poor kid probably couldn’t have thrown a ball to save his life, and he loved sports. He would cheer louder than anyone, even though the guys were such assholes to him.”  
“But not you, though, right?” It was more of a statement. I’d never seen Liam be mean to anyone.  
“No. But I didn’t stop it .” His voice was rough with emotion. He cleared his throat and stared out the windshield.  
I put my hand on his arm, not knowing what else to do. “I should have stopped it ,” he said firmly.  
I didn’t say anything.  
“I mean, why didn’t I? I thought it , thought they should leave him alone, but I didn’t actually open my mouth and put it out there. It makes me fucking ashamed, ashamed to be a jock.”  
Liam almost never cursed, so I knew he was really upset. I tried to lighten the mood. “Yeah, I’ve always been ashamed about being such a jock myself.”  
“Shut up,” he said without venom. “If anyone had been nice to that kid, if anyone had bothered to stick up for him, he might not have felt like he had to… God! How could someone even stand to do that?”  
I wondered myself, and I wondered how long it had taken and what he’d been thinking when he did it . But that was just morbid and now was probably not the right moment to bring it up.  
Liam took stuff so personally sometimes. For being such a tough guy in the ring, Liam could be surprisingly sensitive outside it . I mean, I felt really bad for Raymond, too, but Liam was taking it hard. Then again, he’d seen Raymond being bullied firsthand. I knew it wasn’t easy to step in on something like that, tell your teammates to shut the fuck up. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have done it either.  
“You have a lot of clout in this school, Pin Man. So you didn’t help Raymond. None of us did, and that’s a big stinking pile of monkey shit. But you can help the next kid. Just be t rue to yourself, dude.”  
Liam put on his serious frown. “I’m going to get involved with that anti-bullying whatever.” “Yeah? You want company?”  
“Always.” He held up a fist for me to bump. If we were home I’d have knocked it aside and hugged him. Liam needed a big ol’ honking hug. But we were in the school parking lot so I did the macho thing and bumped it .  
“Emily’s going to be wondering where we are,” I said. “Yeah. We’d better go in.”

IN THE cafeteria they had a table set up for the anti-bullying club. Liam went over while I told Emily what was going on. We ended up spending most of lunch at that table. They had flyers to order anti-bullying T-shirts, hats, brochures with t ips on how to stop bullying, and a sign-up sheet. They were going to meet once a week. Liam and I signed up. The girl at the table was beside herself with excitement to have Liam Payne interested. After about ten minutes she asked if he’d consider being an officer, and he said sure. Funnily enough, she didn’t ask me.  
I noticed some of the wrestlers and football players eyeing Liam at the table and not looking too thrilled about it . I almost flipped them off then remembered that I’m, like, twenty pounds shy of the right to be cocky. I kept my finger to myself.  
As I watched Liam dedicate himself to that cause so seriously, I started to feel all warm and melty. I’d known him for nine years, and I still sometimes forgot what a big heart he had. My own flipped over in my chest, and I guess I must have been staring at him with absolutely no filt er, because when I turned my head, I saw Emily. She was watching me with this sad, pitying expression.  
Damn. My face burned with a wave of mortification.  
I told Liam I’d see him later and went back to my locker. I switched my books and ditched into a restroom on the second floor. It was empty, what with everyone still being at lunch and all. I went into one of the stalls and sat down, putting my face in my hands. They were shaking.  
That look on Emily’s face…. In her face I saw what I’d never fully admitted to myself—the humiliatingly pathetic hopelessness of my love.

ON HALLOWEEN Liam came over, and we watched a couple of old Hammer movies starring Christopher Lee. Liam was usually on a strict training diet that consisted of eggs and protein powder and semitrucks full of broiled chicken and green beans—basically, nothing remotely yummy. But wrestling season didn’t start until Thanksgiving and I managed to tempt him with a bowl of chocolate ice cream with marshmallow topping. I was his best friend; that was my job. My parents were out at a Halloween party, so we had the place to ourselves. Liam had this goofy werewolf mask he liked to put on when he answered the door for t rick-or-treaters. The screams that wafted into the living room? Priceless.  
There was something I wanted to talk to him about, but I didn’t work up my nerve until we were Hammered out and had gone to bed.  
“Hey, Liam.”  
“Hey, what?”   
“Um… I’ve decided something. I’m going to come out at school.” Liam rolled over to face me. “Seriously?”  
“Yeah.”  
“Wow, Zayn. That’s… a big deal.”  
“I mean, it ’s probably not going to be the news of the century. It ’s not like I’ve ever dated a girl in my entire life. But I wanted to make sure you’re okay with it . Everyone knows you’re my friend.”  
“What are you talking about, Zayn? You know I don’t care.”  
“I’m just giving you a heads up. At least you have Emily. That should help douse a few pitchforks.”  
He was quiet for a minute. “You can’t douse pitchforks.” Damn. “Yeah, fine. Typo. Delete.”  
He scooted closer, lying on his stomach and facing me. He put a hand on my shoulder. “You know I’m behind you 100 percent. I’ll back up you up with my fists if I have to.”

I snorted. “Oooh, I quake, O mighty ninja. But the brotherhood of the gay violence believes in not. Besides, your coach would string me up if I damaged his star.”  
Liam laughed. “I’m not easy to damage, in case you hadn’t noticed.”  
“True. Well… thanks.” I stared up at the ceiling. I couldn’t really look at him when he was so close, in my bed, and being so fucking wonderful.  
Since the infamous “pool incident” before seventh grade (yes, it lived in my head in double quotes), Liam was careful to stay on the far side of the bed, his back to me, and I did the same. It was like one of those fift ies sitcoms where the pretend-married couple puts up a pillow barrier to make sure there’s no hanky-panky. You couldn’t see our pillow barrier, but it was there all the same. Except right now it didn’t seem to be.  
“So what made you decide to do this now?” he asked.  
“As opposed to waiting ’t il we graduate? That would be easier on you.”  
“I told you I don’t care. God, you know that. I’m just wondering. Is it the anti-bullying stuff?” I couldn’t help myself. I turned on my side to face him.  
“I figured it would be a good time. There’s so much attention on bullying right now.  
Probably fewer assholes will be willing to be openly hateful.”  
Liam nodded. “Yeah. At least not where anyone can see them. You need to be careful, though, Zayn. Don’t put yourself in situations where you’ll be alone. Stick close to me. Swear?”  
I nodded, and then I rubbed my eyes tiredly and just looked at him. There was nothing I could say to that monumental heap of selflessness except thanks. And that went without saying.  
His face was only a foot away from mine, me on my side and him on his stomach, propped up on his elbows. The lights were out, but my curtains were open, and there was enough light from the streetlamp outside to see his face pretty well—and all the rest of him. He always wore a tank top and briefs to bed. His shoulders and pecs were bunched up from being on his elbows and the tank top was stretched tight. His blond hair was a little long, and his blue eyes were dark in the dim light. He looked so hot. I started to get hard. Stupid me.  
“There’s another reason,” I said. “Yeah?” He arched a brow.  
I sighed. “I want to meet someone. You have Emily. Kids are always macking in school….  
It ’s not fair.”  
He laughed. “Poor Zayn. ‘Nobody wuvs me!’”  
That was just fucking annoying. “Shut up! I’m horny and frustrated, and I’m sick of it , okay? You don’t know what it ’s like. You could sleep with anyone you wanted, Mr. High School Heartthrob.”  
Liam got serious. “I’m just teasing you. Don’t blow a gasket .”  
I pouted. “Whatever. My point is, no one’s going to come shopping if the ‘for sale’ sign isn’t on the door.”  
He tried to hold back a guffaw, but it snorted out his nose anyway. “What?” I demanded.  
“Inst ant Zayn classic, right there! I’ll have to work that into our next issue.”  
“Shut up,” I said, but I couldn’t stop a smile. “I’m serious. I’m tired of thinking about sex all the time and not getting any. Me and my right hand need to part ways. It ’s pathetic. Best years of my life, and I’m wasting them.”  
“You’re sixteen!”  
“I know! And I’ll be sixteen for approximately six more months and then never again! I want to enjoy it while it lasts.”  
Liam looked at me for a long moment, then sighed. He flipped over onto his back. I didn’t move, and he was closer to me after the flip. My hands were folded up in front of me and his bare right shoulder was an inch from my hand. I wanted to reach out and touch it , just to see if his skin felt as smooth as it looked, to test the give of his muscles. But I couldn’t do that.  
“I’m a virgin,” Liam said, looking up at the ceiling. “Oh. You guys haven’t….”

“No. I like Emily, but I’m not sure we’re, like, forever, and I don’t want to do that with her and then break up.”  
“That’s… big of you.” I was thinking that Emily was probably not thrilled with Liam’s streak of gallantry. Not that she was a slag or anything, but she was kind of liberated about stuff. I never got the impression she intended to stay a virgin ’til marriage. But what did I know about het romance? “You guys do other stuff, though, right?”  
Liam shrugged. I knew he wasn’t going to tell me the nasty deets and really, I didn’t want to know. I was jealous enough as it was. What went on between him and Emily was one of the few things we didn’t discuss, and I guess we both knew why that was.  
For a while we said nothing, and I shut my eyes. I almost fell asleep, curled toward him like that, nearly touching his arm.

Liam

I COULD feel Zayn’s breath on my shoulder. It just ghosted there, like it was alive or something. Puff. Puff. He was so close to me I could feel his body heat. He was going to sleep. I turned my head to look at him. His eyes were closed, so I let myself stare.  
Sometimes I had the weird idea that Zayn was getting more beautiful by the week, kind of like his growth spurt had been, only this was a beauty spurt. His hair was long right now, and it was a mass of chestnut-brown curls. He’d never had acne like most guys do, and he had really nice skin, pale and clear. He had full lips with a sassy sort of curve to the upper one that made him look like he was secretly smiling even when he wasn’t. His lashes were really long on his cheeks.  
I looked back up at the ceiling.  
It was t rue, what I’d said about Emily. Even though we’d been dating for a year, we hadn’t done the deed. It ’s not that I didn’t want to. I liked making out with her fine. But I wasn’t compelled to go further than that. I never lost control. I was afraid to. I mean, condoms break, right? I liked Emily well enough, but I didn’t want to marry her. So I was paranoid about getting her pregnant. You hear horror stories like that all the time, and there were always a few girls pregnant in the junior and senior classes. I would never allow anything like that to threaten my wrestling career. A few t imes things had gotten heavy enough that we’d brought each other off with our hands. But usually, it didn’t even get that far. It wasn’t worth the blue balls.  
Besides, I was busy. I studied hard to get good grades. I did a lot of t raining, even in the off- season. And I was jealous of the time I got to spend with Zayn. That was my reward for doing everything else right. Emily and I went out sometimes, usually Friday nights. But mostly we saw each other in school. In school, we were always with Zayn. We were like the Three Musketeers. I turned my head to look at him again. His lips were parted as he breathed deeply, almost asleep. I liked Zayn so much it scared me. And sometimes it confused me. It was like someone had knocked my head, hard, on the mat, and for a minute I wasn’t sure which way was up or who the guy was standing there in my singlet. Stunned is the right word for it , I guess. Sometimes I felt stunned by life, like something had gotten me on my back and I was  
three seconds from the count and I didn’t even remember how I got there. “Zayn?” I said.  
“Hmm?” I’d woken him up.   
“What stuff do you think about?” He barely opened his eyes.   
“What?”  
“You said you think about sex a lot. What do you think about? When you think about, you know, being with a guy?”  
He blinked at me stupidly. “What…? Why do you want to know?”  
“We talk about everything else, don’t we? It ’s okay, it ’s not going to gross me out or

anything. I’m just curious what one guy thinks about when he’s thinking about another guy.”  
Zayn stared at me for a minute, and then he rubbed one eye. He does that when he’s uncomfortable.  
“Um… I think about kissing. A lot. I think I really like kissing. You know, with tongue. I think that’s hot .”  
“Yeah,” I said. Something tickled low down in my stomach. I turned my head to look at the ceiling.  
“And pressing against someone. Their weight on me, having someone lying on top of me with nothing between us, skin against skin.”  
“Yeah?”  
“Yeah. And I’ve been reading about stuff on the Internet—stuff two guys can do with each other. There’s this thing called…. Are you sure you want to hear about this?”  
I glanced at him. He looked doubtful. I shrugged and tried to act casual, even though my pulse was racing. “Sure. Go ahead.”  
“You’re sure.” He said it flat, like he didn’t buy it . “Yes!”  
“Double swear on your mother’s grave sure?”  
“Zayn! It ’s interesting! You know I’m no homophobe. Who else is going to tell me these things?”  
“Fine. So there’s this thing called frottage. One guy lays on top of the other guy, naked. And you can use lotion or something to make it more slippery if you want, and you just rub against each other like that. Or one guy can wrap his hand around both dicks and sort of do a double jerk, except you’re right up against each other, rubbing the heads against each other as you jerk off.”  
“Um….” This conversation was probably the worst idea I’d ever had in my life. I was able to picture everything Zayn described, in freaking 3D. And it was turning me on—like plugging into a power grid sort of turning me on. I felt hot all over and my dick was starting to throb. “Okay, I think that’s—”  
But Zayn was in la la land. He ignored me. “But you know what I really think about all the freaking time? Sucking someone.”  
Fuck.  
I tried to block the images in my head and the lust I was feeling to regain some strategic ground. Why the hell had I started this? Had I wanted to do this to myself?  
Had I?  
I tried to sound cynical. “No kidding. You really want to do that?” “Hell, yes!” Zayn was very enthusiastic.  
“Why? I mean I get why the other guy would want you to, and I guess you have to do the tit for tat thing if he does it to you, but you seriously want to?”  
“God, yes. It ’s so hot .” I snuck a peek at Zayn’s face. He was all lit up like he was talking about the latest issue of Aquaman. “I mean, first, the idea of another guy’s dick really turns me on. Sort of like when you think about breasts, I guess. And having it in my mouth would be as close to it as you can get. You can feel it and smell it and taste it…. Don’t you feel that way about girls?”  
The thought was jarring somehow in the intimacy we’d built in the dark. I wasn’t sure what he meant. “About their breasts?”  
“No, you know—oral sex. Have you ever done that with Emily?” “No.”  
“Do you want to?”  
Honestly, the thought was a little intimidating. “Not really.” “Oh. Has anyone ever done that to you?”  
“No.”  
“Right. Well, guess I’m a disgusting pig, then.”  
“You’re not disgusting, Zayn. I’m sure it ’s normal—I mean, for a gay guy.”

We fell silent. I knew Zayn was turned on, too. I could hear it in his voice. He was breathing hard and there was this weird tension in the air, so thick it was almost choking me. The way he was turned on his side, he was lying close to me. I couldn’t feel his dick, but I knew it was there and it was hard. I imagined I could feel the heat of it almost touching my leg.  
And he probably knew I was turned on, too. I didn’t look down, but I had to be tenting the blanket. Geez. This was really insane.  
I was so freaking tempted. All it would take would be for me to roll onto my right side, and Zayn would be mine. Just roll toward him, and he would know what that meant, and he would kiss me. We could take off our clothes, and I could pin him down into the mattress and rub against him, like he’d said. That would feel so good. Zayn would suck me if I let him. He wanted to. And I wanted him to. God, so fucking bad.  
I sat up in a hurry and swung my legs over the edge of the bed. I had to go jerk off. Right now.  
“Need to use the bathroom,” I said. My voice sounded like someone had ground it with sandpaper.  
I started to stand up, but Zayn grabbed my upper arm. He was stronger than you’d expect. “Don’t go,” he said.  
“Zayn…,” I warned him, but I sat back down. I was poised on the edge of the bed, ready to flee.  
“I know what you’re going to do. Let me.” His voice was low and deep, rough like mine.  
Damn, it just made me harder.  
“I can’t. Don’t you get it? I don’t want to lead you on.” It came out harsher than I intended. “It doesn’t have to mean anything. We could both just see what it ’s like.” He rubbed my  
arm with his thumb.  
“I’m not gay,” I said. It sounded pathetic. I tried again. “I don’t want to hurt you. I never want to hurt you, Zayn.”  
“Then don’t go.”  
I didn’t know what to say to that, because that was the reason why I had to go. I shook my head. But I didn’t stand up. I didn’t pull away.  
“Look,” Zayn said. “I know where we stand. It ’s not going to make me expect anything.” He had that slightly trembly tone to his voice that he got when he really wanted something and was trying not to show it . He was still rubbing my arm. His hand slipped down to my waist, slowly, and then onto my thigh where it felt hot and heavy. And then—then he removed it . He stopped touching me. I knew that had cost him.  
I wished he hadn’t stopped.  
I should have left. But instead I just sat there. I was so hard it hurt. I had never been this turned on with Emily, maybe because this was so… forbidden. It was insane. All the nights Zayn and I had slept in the same bed, and I never really thought about it . But at that moment, I wanted him to touch me so bad it felt like I was dying. Was this what it felt like for Zayn all the time?  
And that was what pushed me over the edge. Because if this was what it was like for him, at least I could give him this.  
“Okay,” I said.  
He didn’t say anything, but his hand reappeared and slowly rubbed my thigh. I felt him lean his head against my back. He was shaking. His fingers rubbed farther and farther along the inside of my thigh, over my boxers, teasing. It felt so good. I held my breath and looked down. His hand was so much bigger, his fingers so much longer than Emily’s. He had really nice hands, large but still sort of delicate—an artist’s hands. His fingers rubbed circles to the left of my hip, getting larger and larger. And then they slipped lightly over my hard-on.  
“Oh God,” I said, as a fresh wave of heat rushed through me, and I went a little weak. I lay back down on my back. One touch and I was down for the count—match over.  
Zayn lay down against me immediately and pressed into me. I could feel him, hard and really big, against my hip. I hadn’t felt him like that since that day in the pool in the summer before seventh grade. We’d both been careful not to get completely nude around each other.

His body had changed a lot. He felt like a man now, not a boy. I don’t know why, but that made me even more excited. He leaned in to kiss me, his eyes completely black in the dim light.  
I stopped him with a hand on his chest. “Not that .”  
I couldn’t let him kiss me. If we had sex like that, did all the things he’d talked about, there was no way either one of us could ever come back from it .  
He looked disappointed, but he nodded. He looked down at my tank top and lift ed the hem up ’til it was under my arms. He started touching my stomach and chest. He looked at me as if asking if it was okay. I didn’t say anything.  
His fingers explored my chest so delicately. It was like he was drawing. Every touch sent sparks through me. My dick throbbed. I closed my eyes.

Zayn

I WAS touching Liam, and he was letting me. It was hard to believe it was really happening, that it wasn’t just one of the fantasies that I jerked off to every day. I knew I had pushed him, but at the moment I just couldn’t give a shit. I’d wanted him so badly for so long that I plead temporary insanity. And I sure wasn’t going to waste the precious moments I had him spread out under me worrying about it .  
I ran my fingers over his abs and chest. His skin was like a baby’s, warm and soft, and he had a lit t le cushion over those muscles. Absolutely perfect. God, how many times had I wanted to touch him here, seeing him in his singlet or in the pool? His eyes were closed like he didn’t want to see what we were doing. I could live with that. Let’s be honest, I was so pathetically horny and crazy for him, I probably would have put on a Sailor Moon costume, if that was what worked for him.  
I ran my fingers over one of his nipples. He took in a sharp breath and pressed his lips tight. I licked my thumb and did it again, rubbing it harder this time. He made a sound deep in his throat and squirmed, not quite thrusting up his hips but close.  
I looked down at his briefs. He was really hard and poking up one side of them. It made me crazy to look at it—my first erection on someone other than myself, in my bed. And it was Liam’s. I knew he was excited because we’d talked about sex, but so what? He was hard, and he was going to let me touch it .  
I resisted the urge to just grab it . I had never been with anyone, but I was determined to t ry to make this as good as I could. I wanted him to never forget it . Maybe if it was really good, he’d let me do it again. And if this was my only shot, then I wanted to draw it out as long as possible. I skimmed my fingers over his belly and leaned down so I could take his nipple in my mouth.  
I thought he might try to stop me, but he didn’t. I sucked on it and then licked it slow and hard with the flat of my tongue. He made a sort of strangled noise and thrust his hips up.  
“Zayn,” he whispered.  
God that was so hot. I nearly shot in my underwear. I couldn’t stop a sound escaping—I think I whimpered. I got up on my elbow so I could lean over him and did it to the other nipple. I wanted to lie down on top of him so bad it was like needing to breathe, but I knew he wouldn’t like that. He’d drawn a line in the sand between us, and I didn’t dare cross it for fear he’d just get up and walk way, go take care of himself in the bathroom.  
I sucked his nipples some more. I liked using my tongue. I’d seen a YouTube video of this kiss in slo-mo where a backlit girl and guy had sort of licked flat and slow with their tongues on each other’s lips for ages. It was so hot that I’d jerked off to it for weeks, pretending it was me and Liam. I tried to repeat that now, that flat, slow, deliberate lick all over Liam’s nipples and chest and then down to his belly button, taking my time. Liam seemed to like it , because he started squirming and thrusting his hips and tossing his head on the pillow. He hadn’t been touching me, but after a while, one hand came up and rubbed my shoulder as if he couldn’t help it . I snuck a peek at his dick, and it was twitching in his briefs, and there was a wet spot.

God, so, so hot.  
“Zayn, please touch me,” he whispered, all quivery. Hearing him say my name like that,  
ask me that, checked off at least three previously hopeless fantasies. I groaned.  
I continued to lick at his belly, over that blond fuzzy trail that ran from his belly button to his groin. I slid my hand onto his thigh and then over. I rubbed the flat of my hand up him, from base to tip, firm, and he grabbed my shoulders and thrust up against me. He didn’t make a sound, though. I glanced up to see him biting his lips, trying to keep it in.  
God, he felt so good, hard and pulsing with life and burning hot. I rubbed him up and down, closing my fingers around him as much as I could over the cotton. He held my shoulders tight and starting thrusting up into my hand in a rhythm, his eyes still squeezed shut, mouth panting. Holy smokes, he would get off like this if I let him, just working himself against my hand. But  
I didn’t want that. I had to see him. I wanted to taste him.  
I took my hand away, and he sort of growled in protest. I sat up so I could get both hands in action, and I pulled down his briefs. He hesitated for only a second before he let me. I took them all the way off. I wanted all of him that I could get.  
As I came back up from pulling them off his feet I started kissing his legs. He gripped the sheets tight, but he didn’t stop me. At this point, I was operating on pure need, just wanting to get as much of him as I could, to get up close and personal with all of the places on him that I’d dreamt about—which was pretty much everywhere. I squirmed between his legs, forcing them to spread a little, and got on my belly. I pushed my hands under his thighs and up and around until I was grasping his hips. I held him firm as I kissed and licked his thighs, both sides, over and over. His thighs bulged with muscles from all the wrestling, and they were lightly covered with brown fuzz. They were so beautiful and so male. I licked up closer and closer to his balls.  
His hands tangled in my hair. “Zayn, God, you’re driving me crazy,” he said, in a voice I’d never heard from him before, tight and edgy. “Just do it .”  
I didn’t want to stop exploring, but I knew his patience was running out. I reluctantly left off kissing his thighs. I pressed them a lit t le farther apart with my hands, though, and when I saw him like that, his balls and the curve of his ass, spread out in front of me, I couldn’t help myself. I nuzzled my face deep between his legs, getting right up into the center of him. He smelled like a man—sweat and musk and Liam. It reminded me of the scent of the wrestling matches, which was by now like my Pavlovian trigger for sex. I groaned into the weirdly soft skin of his sack and pressed my nose and mouth and chin against him. I licked and sucked, rolling my face against him like I was a cat and his scent there was catnip. Oh God, it was. I was in some other plane of sexually fueled hyper reality. I think I was moaning and didn’t even care.  
His hands gripped my head hard. “I’m going to come,” he said in a low, surprised voice.  
That got through to me. I sat up at once, ending all contact. I didn’t want him to come before I’d even gotten to touch his bare dick or taste it .  
For a long moment we both just sat there, panting, him on his back and me sitting on my knees between his thighs. I was hot, and I pulled my T-shirt over my head, but I didn’t move to take off my boxers. I figured he didn’t want to see that.  
He stared right at me, arms down by his sides, dick pulsing along his belly. He looked so fucking glorious I could cry, naked except for the tank top pushed up high, his dick hard and leaking on his stomach. But he had a strange expression on his face, half-scared, half, I don’t know, maybe it was desire or surprise. After a minute he started to jerk himself, just staring at me, like he was determined to end this.  
“No fucking way, Payne,” I said. I grabbed his wrist and pushed him off. I went down.  
I lay down on him so that my head was on his hip, and I wrapped my hand around him. He was not as long as I was. I’d measured myself hard; I was seven and one-quarter inches. He was at least an inch shorter than me, but kind of like his body, he was really wide. He was so thick I could barely touch my fingers together when I circled the base of him, and I had long fingers. I loved it—every square inch of him. I began to stroke up and down, not too tight or fast because he was already close. His hand settled on my head, not petting me or anything, just there. I leaned forward and began to lick him, slow and flat, just like I had everywhere else.  
I didn’t even think about the fact that I’d never done this. I just needed it . I licked him all over.  
Meanwhile my hand couldn’t seem to stop pumping him. It was like my hand and my mouth were rival gangs competing for territory, both just going for all they could get. He didn’t make a sound, but he started trembling all over, especially in his thighs. His abs contracted. His hand was warm on my head, not pushing me down, but just giving me the slightest pressure as if he couldn’t help trying to guide me even closer.  
I sucked him into my mouth. I have a pretty big mouth, but it still stretched me trying to take in his width. I sucked on the tip of him and rolled my tongue around it . My hand pumped him. It felt like a good rhythm so I kept going. After a few minutes, he curled up.  
“Zayn,” he whispered.  
I knew he was going to come soon, and I couldn’t stop it. So I sucked him in farther, feeling him rub along the roof of my mouth. He pushed into the back of my throat, and I gagged a lit t le. I pulled off a bit, but I didn’t stop. I sucked him hard, moving up and down, my fingers squeezing. I wished I could freeze time, make this last forever, but I couldn’t, so I tried to memorize everything. I wanted to remember the smell of him, musky and warm, the texture of him in my mouth, all hard and silky and pulsing, the slight give of him under my fingers.  
No matter how many times I’d fantasized about being with a guy, being with Liam, it had never come close to the reality. I love, love, loved everything about this. Holy sexual paradise, Batman, I was so fucking glad I was gay!  
His breathing got loud, like an express t rain. He strained upward, and then he groaned. I felt him go even harder in my mouth, absolutely stiff and straight, and then I tasted his come, tangy and a lit t le soapy. He shot into my mouth over and over, and I swallowed as best I could. I wasn’t going to pull off, no way, not when I might never get to have him in my mouth again.  
I swallowed it all and continued to lightly suck and lick him. He was starting to soften when he gently pushed me off. “Too much,” he whispered.  
My own need slammed into me then, like it had been there all along but just uncloaked itself. I was vibrating with it. I wanted to lie on him and rut against his thigh, but I figured that would be too gay. He didn’t need my maleness all pushing against him like that. I rolled onto my side and up onto an elbow. My face was level with his stomach, and I was as close to him as I could get without actually touching. I thrust my hand down my briefs and started jerking inside them as I stared into his eyes and then down at his body and his softening cock. I was so close to the edge it wouldn’t take much, not with that view.  
He tugged on my arm trying to get me to move up. I wasn’t sure what he wanted, but I scooted up until we were face-to-face. He turned onto his side to face me. I wondered if he would kiss me—I wanted him to so badly—but he didn’t. He looked down and ran his finger under the elastic at the top of my boxers and tugged it a lit t le. I got the message and pushed them down, exposing myself. He just looked at my dick while my hand hovered there wondering what I was supposed to do. He kind of bit his lip and folded his arms against himself. He wasn’t going to touch me, then. I figured he wanted to watch. Maybe he was curious what another guy looked like when he got off. At that point, I really didn’t care.  
I started touching myself again. For some reason, all the stuff I’d just done to him didn’t feel nearly as scary intimate as this, me jerking off while he watched. I wondered what he was thinking. I guessed it didn’t do much for him, not the way seeing his dick lit me up inside like fireworks. But I couldn’t help playing it up a lit t le. I had so much precome by now, and I rubbed it around with my thumb and over that sensitive part on the underside. Liam clenched his jaws, a frown on his forehead. I didn’t know what that meant, if he liked it or not, but I was way too far gone to do much more teasing anyway.  
I stroked myself fast and hard, and I started to come. The polite thing to do would have been to put my hand over myself and catch it , but it felt so, so good, and I did what I wanted. I shot all over his chest and stomach. It was so incredibly sexy, seeing that, it just made me come harder. I came and I came.  
As the last spasms drained away, I was weak. I fell over onto my back and let my eyelids slide shut.  
“Was that too gross? Sorry,” I managed. “It ’s okay.”  
I could hear him moving around and wiping himself off. The thought of Liam wiping my come off his belly and chest was nearly enough to make me hard again.

He lay back down.  
He was quiet for a long time. A really long time.  
“Can you not say this was a terrible mistake?” I said, half joking. “Because it was fucking amazing for me. And if you hated it , I’d prefer to remain blissfully ignorant of that fact .”  
“It was great ,” he said, but he sounded off.  
Still, I could pretend the other shoe wasn’t about to drop for a few more seconds when he shifted around and pulled me into a hug.  
“We shouldn’t have done it , though,” Liam said softly. And I knew his hug for what it was  
—a consolation prize. “You know how important you are to me, Zayn, and it was really, really nice, but… I can’t be with you like this. Us fooling around is not fair to you, and it ’s not fair to Emily.”  
I felt a lump in my throat. The glow of the best—and first—sex of my life was fading, and it was a hard fall. I had to face the cold reality of what I’d done. “It ’s my fault. I pushed you into it , and I promised you I never would. God, I suck. I’m a terrible person.”  
“No. I’m the one who had the stupid idea to talk about sex. And I could have said no. I wanted you to do it . I was horny and selfish. I’m sorry.”  
“Right. So we abort this story arc.” My voice cracked.  
He squeezed me hard and kissed my cheek. “I love you, Zayn.”  
I’d told Liam that I loved him before, but at that moment, I couldn’t say it . Because what I meant by it and what he meant by it were two different things. And right now the gulf between them was so big and so awful that I couldn’t stand it .  
The reality sank in. I would never have Liam like that again. An intense, burning pain spread through my chest. It was so strong it took my breath away.  
“It hurts,” I whispered.  
“I’m sorry, Zayn.” He hugged me tighter. I could feel his tears on my cheek, but I had none of my own to give.

WHAT had happened with Liam made me more determined than ever to come out. I was tired of sitting on the hillside waiting for the alien mother ship to return. That is to say, I was sick to death of pining for Liam. And having tasted him like that and then having it taken away, was almost too much to stand.  
I am not a brooder by nature. I like to be happy. I wanted to find someone who could make me stop wanting Liam so damned much. I wanted to find someone to have sex with. I wanted to find someone who wanted me back, because not being wanted hurt like a son of a bitch.  
The thing is, when you think about coming out someday, you think about what it will be like once people know, but you don’t think about how you actually get to that point. I mean, did I ask to speak over the P.A. system and make an announcement? Write an editorial for the school paper? Post it on my Facebook? I was only friends with six people from school, and Liam and Emily were two of them.  
I was still trying to figure it out when it just happened. I went into the bathroom between classes and ran into a Hallmark moment. There was a lit t le freshman guy in there. I’d seen him before but only from a distance. He was like five-four and probably ninety pounds. He wore his hair long in front, and it was dyed blond. He had an earring in his left ear. There was no doubt that he was gay.  
There were three football players in the john, too, and they circled this kid. They all froze when I walked in. The football players looked at me. I looked at them. The freshman was trying to look defiant, but he sort of pleaded at me with his eyes.  
It was a what-would-Liam-do moment. I could have turned around and walked out. If I’d never been friends with Liam, if I hadn’t been thinking about coming out, if the anti-bullying thing had never happened, I probably would have just ducked my head and saved my own skin. But I didn’t. I faced them full-on and folded my arms over my chest.

“Problem?” I said, giving each of the football players a hard stare.  
Now here’s the thing. You need to understand what it was like being friends with Liam Payne. From second grade on, I’d been Liam’s wing man. Where Liam is, there I am also. We sit together at lunch every single fucking day, hang out in the halls, sit next to each other in our shared classes. Now it ’s Emily and I, on Liam’s right and left, like freaking dueling disciples. That’s who I am at school—Zayn-Malik-Liam’s-best-friend.  
I have no illusion that, on my own, I would have been popular. I was a lit t le too dorky, a lit t le too artsy, and a little too gay, even if hardly anyone recognized what that “gay” was. I dressed better than most. I liked my hip-rider jeans and big studded belts. I wore T-shirts, like most guys, but I liked them a bit short (sometimes I ripped off the bottom) and a bit wild and graphic- artish in design. I put product in my hair. My most prized possession, though, was my underwear collection.  
Here’s how that happened: my Aunt Beth visited for New Year’s a few years ago when I was a freshman. She took me clothes shopping in Madison, in the hipper, on-campus shops. She helped me pick out some really rad stuff (well, mostly I picked it out, and she agreed to pay for it ). I got kind of lost in this one men’s underwear department which had things I’d never seen before outside the pages of GQ—Calvin Klein, Andrew Christian, and Ginch Gonch. I was in love. Aunt Beth thought they were “super cute,” especially once I tried on some jeans and showed her how the high briefs stuck up above the low riders. She bought me six pairs. And ever since then, she keeps an eye out for the most colorful, coolest ones in the new lines and sends me a care package a few times a year. I’ve got ones with motorcycles on them, big hearts over the crotch, red stars, cowboy designs, tubas, you name it . It ’s like she switched from Matchbox to Ginch Gonch with hardly a break in stride. Inst ead of collecting Hummel figures, like most women, Aunt Beth collects gay underwear for her nephew.  
Does Aunt Beth know I’m gay? I’m pretty sure, even though I never said the words. But in Wisconsin the look I rocked might have been thought hip-hop, if you were so straight you didn’t know any better.  
Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that, even if I wasn’t as obvious as the lit t le freshman guy, I was far from normal for Jefferson, Wisconsin. I probably would have gotten a lot of shit over the years if it weren’t for the fact that I was in the golden light cast by Liam Payne. As it was, most people seemed to think I was kind of cool. And if they didn’t, they knew better than to risk Liam’s disfavor by saying so.  
Maybe that was why the three football players didn’t punch me out that day. “Well?” I said, when no answer was forthcoming. “What are you guys doing?”  
“None of your business, Malik. We were just talking to the faggot here,” one of them said. He pushed the freshman’s shoulder with a hard finger jab. The kid was sent back a few steps, but he stopped and held his ground.  
“I see. You’re giving a kid half your size shit because he’s gay,” I said, stating it as a fact. “Why does this sound familiar? Oh, yes, suspension, probation, emergency assembly…. It ’s all coming back to me now.”  
The guy who pushed the kid looked at me. He got a guilty flush.  
“Shut up, Malik. We weren’t going to hurt him,” he said, half-sarcastic, half-defensive. “Much,” he added. His friends found that supremely amusing and laughed.  
I stepped between two of the jocks and turned, putting my back to the kid, getting between them. I was a lit t le scared, but mostly I was pissed off. Really pissed off. I mean, had they learned nothing from Raymond Toleman? My hands were shaking.  
“It would be a shame to waste this display of enlightenment in the bathroom. Why don’t we take this to the central lobby where your profoundly witty hate-crime banter can be heard by all?” I snapped scathingly.  
“Fuck you, Malik,” the jock spat out. “It ’s none of your goddamn business.” “It is my goddamn business,” I said, “because I’m gay.”  
And just like that, I came out at Jefferson High.  
The football players gaped at me. I could see the dawning realization of how huge this was wash over their faces. They looked at each other, and with a nod from one of them,

started to leave.  
“Malik…. Fuck, you are so screwed,” one of them muttered as he left.  
My knees started to fail me. That had really not been the life-affirming moment I’d hoped it would be.  
“Are you okay?” the freshman said, touching my arm. He was looking at me like I was Batman and Aquaman and Sandman all rolled into one. Whereas actually, I felt about as powerful as my mom’s green Jell-O mold.  
“Oh my God,” I said. “I just fucking came out .” “Sorry,” he said, grimacing.  
I shook my head. “I need to tell Liam.”

Liam

I WAS taking a shower after PE when I started to get a whiff that something was wrong. There was a lot of whispering going on, and guys were staring at me. I felt my face burn, but I took my t ime, kept getting dressed.  
I’m ashamed to admit it , but I had a moment of fear that what Zayn and I had done a few weeks ago had gotten out. I knew that wasn’t likely. I mean, it ’s not like a sex tape was going to end up on the Internet, and I knew Zayn wouldn’t tell anyone. But that was immediately where my mind went. I’d felt so guilty and confused since it had happened. In fact, it was hard to stop thinking about it .  
Second thought—something about Emily. Third thought—something about the wrestling team.  
Never let them see you sweat. I tied my shoes with great care, then grabbed my backpack from my locker.  
By the time I left, three of our best wrestlers were waiting for me in the hall along with a couple of football players I knew vaguely. They straightened up the minute I appeared. They didn’t look happy.  
“Liam, over here.” It was Vince Baker, the second-ranked wrestler on our team. We’d always been rivals but also friends, or so I’d thought. He nodded his head toward an area under the stairs that was a lit t le more private. I went over.  
“What?” I asked, adjusting my backpack and trying to look like I wasn’t worried.  
Vince looked around to see if anyone was listening. “Your pal, Zayn, just told Mike and Rob here that he’s gay.”  
The football players nodded their agreement. Their faces were grim. It snapped into focus in an instant. That’s what this was about. Zayn had outted himself by telling Mike and Rob? What had he been thinking?  
“We’re telling you because we respect you, man,” Mike said. “You should know what’s coming down.”  
I felt a chill of fear, but I stood taller. “So? It ’s not exactly news to me.” “You knew?” Vince said in disbelief.  
I gave a put-upon sigh and stared at him. “Zayn and I have been best friends since second grade. What do you think? Yeah, I knew he’s gay. That’s his business, nobody else’s.”  
Vince grew red. He looked like he was trying to figure out what to say, like it was just incomprehensible. “You realize that the guys are not going to be happy about the fact that you hang out with a gay guy all the time. Are you gay?”  
“Being friends with a gay person does not make you gay,” I said, faking boredom. “Answer the fucking question, Liam,” Vince insisted loudly.  
I thought about what Zayn and I had done. Why had I done it? Now I had it on my conscience. I’d had sex with Zayn—and I really liked it. Even if I hadn’t touched him or kissed him, even if I’d promised myself that it would never happen again, was I really any different than Zayn?  
No, I thought. Zayn knows he’s gay. He’s always known it . I wasn’t like that. I liked girls. Besides, Zayn had no reason to be ashamed of what we’d done, and I didn’t either. It was nobody’s business. But I was also sweating, my heart pounding.  
“I’m not gay,” I said firmly. “What do you think, Vince? You know I’ve been dating Emily for over a year. You think I’m just playing with her? You think I would do that?”  
Vince breathed out a sigh, though whether it was relief or disbelief, I didn’t know. But I was starting to find my bearings. I went on.  
“And you also know that I’m very involved with the anti-bullying club.” I pointed down at my T-shirt, which had BULLY in a “not” sign on the front. “I don’t have a problem with people being gay. I don’t have a problem with Zayn being gay. And if you want to be a bigoted asshole,”—I shot a glare at Mike and Rob—“you can go talk to some skinhead who gives a damn.”  
Somebody in the hallway cheered. I didn’t turn to see who.  
Vince was not that bad, really, but he was macho up to his eyebrows like a lot of wrestlers. “I don’t give a shit if Zayn Malik is a fairy,” he said, low, as if he didn’t want to be overheard. “He can wear a fucking tutu for all I care. But you’re our number one wrestler. Do you think guys are gonna want you crawling all over their asses if there’s even a suspicion that  
you might be gay?”  
I moved into a spread leg stance and folded my arms over my chest. I narrowed my eyes. “I don’t like repeating myself,” I said, threateningly.  
By now, we’d attracted three more wrestling guys who’d been walking by and noticed us and a few more football players. It was becoming a freaking pep rally.  
“Yeah, well… you’re not gay,” Vince admitted. “But hanging out with a fruit all the time is going to make everyone wonder, and the team doesn’t need that shit. It ’s bad for morale.”  
I tilt ed my head and looked at him. He was talking about Zayn. Big mistake. Suddenly, I was practically growling. “I want to be crystal clear on this, Vince. Are you calling my best friend a fruit?”  
He licked his lips nervously and didn’t say anything.  
“And while you’re at it ,” I continued, “explain how it is that you think you can tell me who I can and cannot be friends with?”  
Vince flinched a lit t le. “You should dump Malik,” he said, but he muttered it , like it was just his opinion.  
“Yeah? Is that the kind of friend you are?” I asked him. I looked around at the other wrestlers. “You’d just drop someone because other people tell you to? Because I’m not like that. I don’t let my family down, I don’t let the team down, and I don’t let my friends down.”  
Vince would no longer meet my eyes. I should have stopped there, but I got a lit t le nasty.  
Maybe it was the residual fear talking.  
“And as for anybody worrying about me getting off on wrestling, I’m not the guy who pops wood on the mat, am I?”  
Vince had been starting to cool down but now his red flush came back with a vengeance. He glanced at the others, embarrassed. We all knew it happened, but as part of our macho code of honor we didn’t talk about it . I really didn’t think it was a big deal, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t prepared to use it . Fortunately, it never happened to me, maybe because I’m so focused on my moves, on finding any tiny advantage. Besides, if I did like guys at all, they’d be lean guys like Zayn, not big, sweaty wrestlers like me. But I’d seen Vince pop wood a few times.  
“F-friction,” Vince stammered. “Everyone knows it ’s normal.”  
I patted his arm. “Yeah. Well, if there ever comes a day when you need to worry about me, I guess it will be obvious, won’t it?”  
I turned and walked away.

THAT night, when I got home, my parents were in the kitchen. It was clear from their faces that

they’d heard. Somebody must have called them.  
It had been a really, really bad day. Besides that little show of love from Vince, I’d had another half dozen “conversations” with teammates and people who thought, for some reason, that my life was public property. Even the coach talked to me, giving me a wandering, supposedly supportive lecture about not risking my chances of fulfilling my dreams and getting a scholarship and all that. I told him, as politely as I could, that I wasn’t gay, there was no problem, and I wasn’t going to risk anything. He patted me on the shoulder like we’d reached an understanding.  
I felt awful. I just wanted to go to my room and check out for a while, go to sleep. But that didn’t appear to be an option.  
“Come and sit down,” my dad said, leading me into the dining room. Mom had some cookies and three cups of herbal tea set out, so that gave me hope they weren’t going to crucify me.  
They looked at me while I ate a few cookies. “Guess you heard,” I said, just to get it over with.  
My dad looked at my mom. “We need you to talk to us.”  
I rubbed my eyes. “Zayn came out at school today. Yes, he’s gay. Yes, he’s always been gay. Yes, I knew it . No, I’m not gay.” I wrapped my hands around my mug. “Any other questions?”  
“Don’t get smart ,” my mom said.  
“This is serious business,” said my dad. I didn’t say anything.  
“We just want you to think about how this is going to affect your wrestling career,” my mom said.  
I groaned. “Why is everyone worried about that? Zayn is just a friend. He’s not me and I’m not him. I have a girlfriend. I’m the number one wrestler for my weight class in the state. How is this going to affect my wrestling career?” I was trying to keep a handle on my anger, because I didn’t talk to my parents like that. But I was getting really sick of having to defend myself. You’d think I was the one who’d come out with all the grief I was getting.  
My parents looked at each other meaningfully but didn’t say anything.  
“Please don’t tell me you want me to stop being friends with Zayn,” I said, ready to crack. “Please tell me that you haven’t loved Zayn like he was one of the family since we were seven years old and now, suddenly, he’s not welcome here.”  
My mom looked guilty. She put her hand on mine. “Of course Zayn is welcome. We know how close you are, and we’re not asking you to stop being friends. Just consider spending more of your time with other people, that’s all.”  
She glanced at my father. He nodded. Clearly they thought they were being amazingly open-minded. But I could sense a strange tension in them, something in the gazes they sent back and forth that I didn’t like, at all.  
“Spread yourself around a little more. Spend more time with Emily,” Mom said brightly, as if that was a hidden bonus to this whole stinking mess.  
“And no more sleepovers,” Dad added firmly.  
I stared at him. “What? We’ve been having sleepovers since elementary school. Do you think he or I are any different now? We’re the same as we’ve always been.”  
“It is different, bucko,” my dad barked. “I’m different. I’m going to look at things differently now that I know Zayn is… that he prefers boys.”  
“Do you think we’d let Emily sleep in your room?” my mom countered.  
I put my head in my hands. Actually, they probably would let Emily sleep over in my room, I thought morosely. Especially now, as long as I had condoms. They’d probably be relieved if they thought we were having sex.  
“That’s a bad analogy,” I said, “because—” I was going to say because Zayn and I have never done anything. But that was a lie.  
To be honest, Zayn and I hadn’t had a sleepover since Halloween, the night that had happened, which was the longest t ime we’d gone without one, ever. I’d made excuses—

homework, my parents wanted to watch some show together, I was tired. But we both knew I was avoiding it . The t ruth is, I didn’t understand what I was feeling, and I didn’t t rust myself. Still, I hadn’t planned on avoiding it forever. I missed it , him. And I figured we’d return to the old status quo soon. Plus, I was a teenager. I wasn’t going to let any privilege go without a damned good fight.  
“That’s not the same thing because I like girls,” I said, not bothering to go any further with that sentence. I looked up. “We don’t have time for many sleepovers anymore anyway, but when he sleeps over, we’ll set up the camping cot and sleeping bag in my room.”  
My mom and dad looked at each other. My dad tapped his finger on the table. “Door open,” my mom said.  
I gave a grunt of exasperation. “We play video games and stuff—you guys hate the noise.  
Door unlocked, and you can come in any time, like always.”  
My dad frowned. I knew I was losing him. I threw in another bone. “And before we go to sleep, I’ll open the door. Look, either you t rust me or you don’t .”  
My dad looked down at the table where he rubbed a thumb over a seam. But he relaxed. “Does Zayn have a boyfriend?” my mom asked brightly, which seemed like a change of  
topic but wasn’t.  
I shrugged. “No. But I think that’s one reason he came out. He’s hoping to meet someone.” “That would be nice.” My mom took a sip of tea. I knew what she really meant was, then  
he’d start hanging around someone else, and people would know you aren’t gay.  
I went to my room and lay down. I felt like I was covered in some invisible disgusting substance. Yeah, I was. It was called ignorance. It sucked. The day had been eye-opening, that was for sure.  
Zayn would be fine. He was an artist. At the end of the day, who really cared if he was gay?  
But there was absolutely no doubt what people expected from Liam Payne.

Zayn

THINGS got very weird very fast, but it could have been worse.  
Word spread like crazy and everyone stared at me in class and in the halls. A few people, people I was sort of friends with, asked me—is it true? I said it was. Mostly the people who actually asked were okay with it . The ones who weren’t just stopped acknowledging that I was on the face of the Earth, like I was the invisible man.  
I told my parents. I don’t think my mom was surprised. My dad was pretty rattled, though. He clammed up and didn’t talk about it , ever. It became a hanging sentence in our house: “So I’m gay. And your thoughts about that are….” Nobody ever finished that sentence. I guess I should be grateful it wasn’t worse; they could have disowned me or shaved my head and sent me to boot camp. Hung me out on the clothesline to be picked over by crows. Took away my crayons. Hey, I was counting my blessings.  
They still adored Liam, maybe more than ever. Liam’s coming over? Great! I think they held out hope that his manliness would rub off on me somehow. Oh, how I wished.  
During lunch, Liam and Emily and I sat in our usual spot. We t ried to act like we always did, but it was clear they were supporting me with their presence, like barricading the door. I appreciated it . I was so, so lucky to have friends like them.  
I got muttered at in the hall and restroom—faggot, fairy, homo. You think you don’t give a shit, but it stings when random people hate you. But I also had a few people, even people I didn’t know, come up to me and say they thought I was brave and good luck and all that. There was even this one cheerleader who seemed to take it as a personal challenge—she’d never looked at me before, but now she couldn’t walk by me without winking and licking her lips.

What was up with that? Extra points for nailing the gay boy? I ignored her.  
Some asshole left used condoms in my locker. The thought of him t rying to push them in through the vent with his fingers was actually sort of hilarious, even though they were disgusting and made a mess. Maybe he finally figured out that he was getting the worse end of the prank, because he stopped doing it .  
I didn’t tell Liam about the condoms or any of the stuff people said. It wasn’t worth having him confronting the jerks, and he would have. He was like my own personal bodyguard. He stuck closer to me in the halls for a few weeks, until it became clear it wasn’t necessary.  
He seemed kind of stiff and worried for a while. I hoped he wasn’t pulling away because he was ashamed of me or, even worse, of what we’d done. But he always seemed to know when I was worried about that, and he’d give me a warm smile or a ding on the arm or bump against my leg to let me know things hadn’t changed between us.  
After a while, it just became the norm, like so-and-so is pregnant and so-and-so has rich parents and Zayn Malik is gay.  
I noticed that Liam was even more touchy-feely and kissy-face with Emily than usual. It made me feel like puking, so I t ried not to look. I told myself it didn’t matter. He was with her, not me, so the degree of “withness” was irrelevant. And anyway, I knew my coming out had probably put pressure on him. I couldn’t blame him.  
Wrestling season came, and Emily and I went to all the matches. We wore our crazy team jerseys, painted our faces and screamed. Some of the wrestlers glared up at me in the stands once in a while, as if to say What are you looking at, faggot?, like I was so hot for their bodies. But at least they didn’t seem to give Liam a hard t ime. He was more focused and fierce than ever. He was on fire. He won almost all his bouts. By the t ime February rolled around, he was number one in individual rankings in his class in the state, again. But that year he came in first overall in rankings in our division—all grades, all weight classes. That was seriously major. Only one more year of high school wrestling to go. It didn’t seem like anything could stop his dreams now, and I was happy for him.  
As for me, the “for sale” sign was in the window. It wasn’t like I was flooded with offers or anything, but there was a guy in my art class named Matt who started smiling at me a lot more.  
Hey, he was no Liam Payne, but then, nobody was. I smiled back.


	7. Senior year

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has an implication of attempted rape, there's a line of * indicating the beggining and end of the part of that story mentioning it.

Liam

WE WERE finally seniors, Emily, Zayn, and me. Things were crazy busy. Zayn and I were studying to take the SATs in October. Emily had done hers early and scored super high, so we teased her that we were going to beat her, even though neither one of us thought we had a prayer of doing that.  
Zayn and I visited UW Madison in August and got the campus tour. I was pretty familiar with the campus from visiting my brother, Charlie, but seeing the behind-the-scenes stuff was different. The wrestling coach met us personally and took us through the sports facility. He was a really nice guy. He’d been to three of my matches, as had coaches from a lot of other schools. He was already talking as if I were on the team, which made me feel great. I wasn’t too worried about getting offered a scholarship, but nothing’s for certain until it happens, right? I still had my senior year of wrestling to get through. Zayn and I were applying to three schools, just to be safe, all of which had top wrestling teams.  
We also toured the art department. They didn’t have the exact program Zayn wanted, comic book art or cartooning, but the professor who talked to us assured him they could slant the program that way on the graphic arts degree. He was really impressed with Zayn’s portfolio. Of course he was. Zayn is brilliant. Some of the work he was doing now on Pin Man and Pencil Boy was as good as a lot of the DC and Marvel comics we bought. People on tumblr loved him. He’d done some fan art for Teen Wolf, too, and it was insanely good.  
We found out that Zayn and I could room together in the freshman dorm if we put the request in early enough. I was really happy about that. The idea of the two of us being on our own away from our parents was so fan-freaking-tastic. I couldn’t wait.  
Emily had no interest in UW Madison. She wanted to go to Smith, a highly ranked women’s college in Massachusetts. A lot of her heroes had gone there, and she wanted to double major in government and gender studies. Her goal eventually was to go to law school and be a human rights advocate. Yeah, that was heavy stuff for the girlfriend of a wrestling jock from Jefferson, Wisconsin. But Emily was scary smart, and she’d always been her own person. That was one of the reasons why I liked her.  
Emily and I didn’t talk a lot about what that move would mean for us. There was some loose talk like “Well, I’ll be home at Christmas” or “Next summer we could….” but I think we both knew that our t ime was running down. We’d been great friends, all three of us, but Emily had her own life to live, and it clearly was on a different path than mine.  
Which was why she really blindsided me when she gave me her ultimatum. We’d gone to see a movie, and I was dropping her off at her house when she pulled something out of her purse. She handed it to me.  
It was a pack of birth control pills. I just looked at her. I had no idea what to say so I settled for the ever brilliant, “Oh.”  
“By the tenth I’ll have been on them a month, and I’ll be completely safe.”  
I looked at the pack in my hand. There was a fluttery feeling low in my stomach that felt like one part arousal and two parts panic.  
“But these things aren’t 100 percent, right?” I said.  
She dug something else out of her purse. It was the information sheet that came with the pills, and she’d highlighted the facts about how this pill was 99.9 percent effective when taken correctly—no kidding, with a highlighter.  
Advantage, Emily.

“Ah,” I said.  
“I hope you’re not worried that I would deliberately not take them and get pregnant? Because if you think my goal in life is to have a baby at eighteen and lose my chance to go to law school—” She was working herself up a serious snarkfest.  
“No. I don’t think that .” And I didn’t.  
She studied me. “Liam, we’ve been dating for two years. It ’s simple, really. I want you.  
Either you want me or you don’t. If you don’t, then what the hell are we doing?”   
“I do,” I said quickly. “Of course I do. This is great .”  
I hugged her.  
I knew my time to waffle had run out. Either I went along with it , or Emily would dump me. She was tired of my excuses. I couldn’t blame her; so was I. And if Emily dumped me, I’d have to find another girlfriend fast. I thought my chances of finding another girl who would put up with Zayn hanging around us all the t ime was pretty slim. Besides, Emily was clever and funny—she was amazing.  
I’d been so confused about sex ever since that thing had happened between Zayn and me last Halloween. For a long time, I felt ashamed of what we’d done, especially since I knew it had hurt Zayn. But part of me wanted to do it again. It had been the hottest thing that had ever happened to me by about a million miles. I looked at other guys, trying to figure out if I was gay, but none of them did anything for me. It wasn’t like I’d be in the locker room and see some naked guy walk by and think, “Yeah, I want me some of that .” Only Zayn.  
Which was a fricking relief, because there was no way I could be gay.  
But things with Emily were definitely not what they should be. I got hard when we made out, sure, but my heart wasn’t totally in it . I guess I liked Emily more as a friend by now, and it was a little like making out with my sister. I thought about other girls, hot ones at school, but it never seemed worth the hassle of breaking up with Emily and all that would screw up. I needed to stay focused on wrestling and academics. I didn’t have t ime for a soap opera.  
The worst, though, was when I found myself with Emily and I thought about Zayn, his mouth on me, the way he’d touched me, the way he’d looked. A few t imes when Emily had gone down on me, that’s exactly what had happened.  
I was seriously messed up, but at least all of that was in my head. And it wasn’t going anywhere else if I could help it . It couldn’t. Eye on the prize.  
I figured once we got to college there’d be a new girl, hopefully one that I found really sexy, one that I would be excited to be with. In the meanwhile, I had plenty of other things to think about. Sex was just one thing in life, right? It wasn’t everything.

Zayn

SENIOR year was kind of a breeze for me. I’d already finished up a lot of the ugly requirements, like math, and so I had three full periods of elective art—major Snoopy dance. After we took the SATs and filled out all the college apps, which were a total pain in the ass, it felt a lit t le like coasting.  
Not so much for Liam, though. This was his senior year of wrestling, and it was a huge deal. By now, people came from all over just to watch him wrestle in the flesh—I mean, people who had nothing to do with our team or the away team. The gym was always packed to the gills. There were TV people there, too, filming for the eleven o’clock news. And there were always coaches from one college or another there scouting. They’d want to take Liam out afterward for a bite to eat, so he rarely stayed over at my place on wrestling nights anymore.  
Emily and I still went to all the matches together. But it felt sad walking home by myself.  
Our sleepovers had become such a tradition. But then, a lot of things were changing.

When Liam and I did hang out together, usually to study, he seemed tired and depressed. He was under a lot of pressure. He got into this thing where he wanted to hug me, just arms around the shoulders, hips as far away from mine as possible, with his face on my shoulder. It was completely nonsexual, but weirdly needy. I hugged him when he wanted me to, for as long as he needed it , even though it had a way of fucking with my head, making me hope for things that were never going to happen. I figured it was his way of trying to stay connected when everything else was moving so fast.  
Sometimes I wanted that, too—to stay connected. And sometimes, I really didn’t.  
I’d been desperately trying to get some space. There was a guy in the art department, Matt. He was thin, like me, with red hair and a soft face. We’d had a thing last year. He wasn’t my type, but when you’re starving you don’t turn down hamburger and hold out for filet mignon. We’d messed around—hand jobs and blowjobs. But Matt always had one eye looking out for someone else even while he was talking to me. I suppose I wasn’t his idea of filet mignon either. I never t rusted Matt. Plus, I was still hung up on Liam. We decided to just be friends—friends with benefits when one of us was particularly desperate. At least he was another gay guy I could talk to. And what Matt wanted to talk about, mostly, was finding men to have sex with.  
Liam disliked Matt with a passion. He thought Matt was using me, said I deserved better.  
Yeah. Well, what else is new? In the immortal words of Mick Jagger, we can’t always get what we want. But I was determined to get what I needed. For the first time in my life, there were things I was keeping from Liam. Big things.

LIAM was at my house on a rainy Saturday in March. Wrestling season was over, and he finally had a lit t le free time again. We were working on Pin Man and Pencil Boy—trying to finish up the issue we’d been dinking around with since September. He went into my desk drawer to get a fresh pad of Post-its, and he went all still. Damn.  
“What’s this?” he asked, taking it out of the drawer. “Um…laminated plastic over a piece of paper?”  
He looked at me, puzzled. “Why do you need a fake ID? And where did you get it?”  
I sighed. I hadn’t intended to tell Liam about it . I knew he wouldn’t approve. But then, I wasn’t looking for his approval.  
“Matt knows a guy who can get them.” “And what’s it for?”  
I looked him in the eye. “For hitting a gay club in Madison.”  
He blinked, and his jaw got tight. I knew the look, and I mentally battened down the hatches. I stuck out my chin. He wasn’t the only one who could be tenacious.  
“Zayn, that’s a really stupid idea.”  
“Then congratulate yourself for not thinking of it . Well done, you.”  
“And you didn’t tell me, why? Obviously because it ’s such a great plan.” “I am telling you.”   
“Because I found your fake ID.” I shrugged. “It ’s not a big deal, Liam.”  
“It is a big deal! Zayn, you’re seventeen. The guys at clubs like that…. It ’s not safe.”  
“How do you know what kinds of guys are at clubs like that?” I yelled, getting annoyed.  
Maybe I felt a lit t le guilty for hiding it , but I didn’t have to answer to Liam for everything.  
“Guys at a club like that want a quick fuck and have probably already had lots of them,” Liam said bitterly. “You walk in there looking… like you do, so young and… and innocent. You’re going to be like a slab of meat in a tiger cage. Is that really what you want?”  
“God, you make it sound like I’m going to prison! No one’s going to force me into anything. I just want to get laid, alright?”  
Liam looked stricken. “Fine. I get it . But why can’t you find somebody your own age?”

I snorted. “Who? I know every gay kid in school who’s out, and twice as many who aren’t, and that makes for, like, ten people in total. And no, I don’t want to sleep with any of them!”  
Liam just stared at me for a long minute. I could see him calculating moves in his head like he was strategizing a match. “Let me go with you,” he finally said.  
“No.” I was firm on that one.  
“Why not? It ’ll be a fun night out. If you meet someone, and he seems nice, get his phone number. What’s the big deal?”  
I laughed bitterly. “Are you high? Liam Payne risk being seen in a gay bar in Madison?  
Can you imagine that on the evening news?” Liam blushed.  
“Besides, what’s the point? Are you my mother now, holding my hand at a gay club, making sure I meet a nice boy?”  
“You don’t need to resort to places like that, Zayn. You deserve better.”  
I deserve better. I was so, so sick of hearing that from Liam. But I knew how stubborn he could be. Arguing with him straight on once he’d locked his teeth into something was like t rying to play chess with the Incredible Hulk. I slumped.  
“Look, please don’t worry about it . I’ll take my cell phone. I’ll call you if there’s any t rouble, and I promise I won’t leave the bar to go home with someone, okay? I’ll stay there, where I’ll be safe in the crowd. Besides, Matt will be with me.”  
Liam snorted. “Matt will take off and leave you the first t ime a guy crooks his lit t le finger.” Well, Liam was right about that.  
“I’ll be fine,” I said.  
Liam came over and put both hands on my shoulder. He made me look at him. His face was so serious. “Tell me you won’t go, Zayn. Come on.”  
What could I do? For the first time in my life, I lied to Liam.

Liam

I KNEW Zayn was going to go to that club with Matt. I could see it in the way he wouldn’t completely look at me when we talked about our weekend plans. I asked if he wanted to go to the movies on Saturday, but he said he was getting together with some people in the art department. Then he changed the subject.  
I was really disappointed that he felt the need to lie to me. But I guess he was determined to meet someone. I didn’t think there was a prayer he’d meet someone worthwhile at a place like that, but when Zayn didn’t want to hear something, he wouldn’t hear it .  
I figured the only thing I could do was to follow him and keep an eye out, for my own peace of mind if nothing else. The thought of some random guy, some big butch construction worker or something, hurting Zayn drove me batty.  
I was parked in my t ruck down the street when Zayn and Matt left Zayn’s house. I followed.  
In Madison, they parked in a parking garage and went to a place called Gorgons. There was a line to get in. I circled the street and found a parking place. I approached the club on foot. I had a plain gray hoodie on with the hood up, hoping no one would recognize me.  
I knew what I was doing was ridiculous, but I couldn’t see any alternative other than giving up and going home, and I wasn’t going to leave Zayn like that. I didn’t dare go inside. Besides, I didn’t have a fake ID, so I found a doorway across the street and hung out there. I just wanted to make sure Zayn came out in one piece and with Matt. If he came out with some guy, I’d have to stop him. No way was I going to let him go to some stranger’s house and get drugged or raped or God knows what.  
My hands were clenched so hard in my pockets I could feel the bite of my nails in my palm. The thought of Zayn dancing with, kissing, a strange man inside that club, maybe going into the bathroom with him, the image of a lot of older men staring at him, drooling all over him…. It honestly made me want to throw up. At least physical pain was something I could deal with. I dug my nails in harder and watched the door.

**************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

Zayn

MATT and I were on the dance floor. I’d had a couple of drinks, but I was so nervous that I really wasn’t feeling them. Matt was in twink heaven, dancing with three other guys who were all, simultaneously, t rying to rub up against him. A lot of men were looking at me, but they were quite a bit older, and some of them were creepy, and it was all a lit t le overwhelming. Honestly, I was looking around the room for a quiet corner where I could sit down for a few minutes.  
Matt was swept away by his groupies, but another guy was in front of me in a heartbeat. He was muscular in that gym bunny way, and he wore a t ight black T-shirt. He looked like he was in his midtwenties. His hair was buzzed short, and he had a quarter-inch beard and blue eyes. He was pretty hot.  
“How you doing?” he screamed in my ear, trying to be heard over the music. “Fine,” I screamed back. He grabbed my hand and danced with me.  
We danced for a few songs, and soon he was behind me spooning me as we danced. I could feel his erection. It turned me on. I mean, he was pretty hot, and it really had been way too long since I’d been with anyone.  
He yelled in my ear, telling me I was beautiful, gorgeous. I knew it was just a come-on, but it was nice to hear. He kissed my neck. I let him, sinking my body back into him as he ground against me. He tilt ed my head and kissed me, deep and dirty. When the song ended, he pulled me toward the door.  
I wasn’t sure where he was taking me, but I didn’t want to leave the club. I pulled back. “Restroom?” I shouted in his ear, inclining my head that way. I was hoping for mutual  
blowjobs in the back. By this point I was really hoping for it .  
He shook his head and shouted back in my ear. “Crowded and hot. Let’s get some air.” I let him pull me outside.  
The bouncers checked me out as we passed. It was a lit t le embarrassing. Yes, thank you, I am a total slut. The guy led me around the corner of the building and then another corner until we were in an alley behind the club. There was a big Dumpster there and a back door. The night air was threaded with wafts of onions, piss, and puke. There were three other couples getting it on. One guy was being fucked and another was getting a blowjob. I quickly looked away. I didn’t know what the etiquette was for gay alley sex, but I really didn’t want to see others going at it . The whole thing felt… it felt pretty slimy, honestly. I thought about Liam’s warning, and I shivered. But this was just sex, right? Just a lit t le mutual pleasure, and then I’d go back in the club and wait for Matt to be done so we could go home. Soon.  
This was what I’d wanted, wasn’t it? Why I’d come? Then why did it feel so not-very- great?  
The guy gently pushed me against a wall.  
“I don’t even know your name,” I managed, my ears still ringing from the club. He grinned. “Call me John.”  
Yeah, fake. But so what? He kissed me, all tongue, a lit t le sloppy but erotic, and it was doing its work. I started to forget the fact that we were in an alley and just focused on kissing him. He rubbed my crotch, grunting his approval. Then he undid my belt and sank to his knees. He put a condom on me and followed that with his mouth. I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to see where I was, or who might be watching. I t ried to just feel it . I kind of wanted it to be over with. But then, it did feel—Oh, God—it did feel pretty nice.  
I’d only ever gotten a blowjob from Matt and this—this was like a professional vacuum cleaner versus a handheld mini-vac. John was relentless, almost too rough. It wasn’t long before I felt my balls tighten and my thighs started to shake.  
He stopped before I came.  
I was feeling light-headed when he stood up and spun me. He pushed me up against the wall. The brick rasped against my face.  
He started yanking my jeans and boxers down, hard. They were around my thighs before I knew what was happening. I clenched my legs together trying to keep them from going down any farther. I was embarrassed being so completely exposed in public like that, with other people around. I turned to look at another couple. One guy was going down on an older man with gray hair, and gray-hair was staring at my ass and panting. He was going to get a free show.  
I started getting a little annoyed. Even if I wanted to give my ass cherry to aka John, and I didn’t, no way in hell was I going to do it in a dirty alley with an audience. I put both palms on the wall and pushed off.  
“Not that ,” I said, managing to move myself, and him, back a foot.  
“Come on!” John pushed me back against the wall and held me there while he rubbed his hard-on in my crack. “Don’t be a baby. I’ve got to have that sweet ass of yours. I’ve got lube, and I’ll wear a jacket .”  
He fumbled in his pocket.  
“No,” I said loudly. “I’ve never done that, and I’m not doing it now. You can… you can do it between my legs if you want .”  
“You’re gonna love it . Just let me get my fingers in you. You’ll be begging for my cock once you feel how good it is, and I’ll jerk you off when I’m inside.” He stuck his tongue in my ear. His fingers, cold and slick, groped between the cheeks of my ass. Oh, God. This guy had a serious hearing impediment. I started to feel a bit of panic, and my dick was rapidly losing interest in the whole thing.  
I was about to open my mouth and start making my point of view really fucking clear to John and to anyone within a hundred yards, which hopefully included the bouncers out front, when suddenly he was pulled off me.  
I grabbed for my pants and pulled them up as I heard the sounds of a scuffle behind me. Somebody yelled. I turned in time to see a guy in a gray, hooded sweatshirt—Liam—get John in a headlock. He gave two short but brutal punches on the guy’s t rapped chin and let him fall. John went down on the asphalt and lay there, shaking his head in a daze.  
I buckled up my belt. I didn’t know if I was more relieved or angry. I settled for humiliated. “Zayn, are you alright?” Liam got in my face, looking all upset and worried.  
I covered my face with my hands. I didn’t want to look at him.  
“Come on,” Liam said. “We need to get out of here before the cops arrive.” He led me from the alley by my arm. He took me to his t ruck, which was parked down the street. He opened the passenger side door and shoved me in, slammed it .  
He climbed in the driver’s side, started the t ruck immediately, and peeled out. We had to avoid the cops. If Liam was caught fighting outside a gay club, it would be a disaster. I didn’t say anything as we rode through the streets headed for the freeway.  
I took out my cell phone. I texted Matt, let him know I didn’t need a ride. My hands were shaking.  
We were on the freeway for a good ten minutes before either of us said a word. A dozen things crossed my mind, but I couldn’t think straight. I was so, so embarrassed that he had seen that, my throat was swollen with it . And I was frustrated that the night had gone so badly. But I was also pissed. Pissed was easiest.  
“Why did you follow me?” I finally asked in a dark voice.  
“I just wanted to make sure you got home okay. Thank God I did.” His tone was a bit insulting on that last, as if I was an idiot caught out doing idiotic things. My temper flared.  
“I had it under control.”  
“Oh? How did you have it under control, Zayn? The guy was forcing you up against a wall, and he was going to fuck you without your consent. At least that’s what it looked like to me. Tell me if I’m wrong.”  
“I was about to scream, fight back. I wouldn’t have let him do that.”  
Liam huffed. “Yeah, and do you think any of the other guys in that alley would have raced to your rescue? Or do you think they would have put up a rope and charged admission?”  
“Not all gay men are like that,” I spat out angrily. “You just assume because they’re gay they’re all abusive perverts.”  
“No, I don’t think all gay men are like that, no more than all straight men are like that. But guys who fuck in alleyways are probably not high on the role-model end of things.”  
I didn’t have any answer for that. In truth, I thought I could have gotten myself out of that situation back there, but I had no way of knowing for sure. Still.  
“That doesn’t change the fact that you followed me,” I said.  
He was silent for a minute, then: “I’m not going to apologize for that.”   
“No, clearly.”  
“Zayn, I’m not sorry that I care about you, and I’m not sorry that I was worried about you.  
Obviously I was right. I’m not going to let anyone hurt you!”  
I looked out the window. The whole thing was so fucking ironic I wanted to laugh—or cry. “God forbid anyone hurt me but you.”  
“What’s that supposed to mean?”  
The lights of Jefferson were coming into view. I felt like I was being smothered in that way I’d been feeling with Liam, more and more. That feeling—I both loved it and hated it . But lately the t ide had definitely been turning toward it just being damned unbearable. It was time to be completely honest.  
“There’s something I need to tell you, Liam. I applied to the School of Visual Arts in New York City, and I got in. They’ve offered me a partial scholarship, and it ’s a really great program. I’m going there in September.”  
“What?” He nearly drove off the road. He kept looking at me, face slack with disbelief.  
Okay, bad idea, telling him while Liam was driving the t ruck. Stupid Zayn.  
“Just watch the road, okay?” I said. I dug my fingernails into the dashboard in a pointless bid for life.  
“But… we’re going to Madison. We’re going to room together.” “No,” I said. “We’re not .”  
I’d been dreading this moment. I knew he wouldn’t understand, and I didn’t want to fight with him. But I couldn’t back down either.  
He suddenly jerked the wheel and took an exit ramp. A moment later we pulled into a McDonald’s parking lot, and he shut off the t ruck. We sat there.  
“Why would you want to do that?” he said, still in disbelief. “I mean, I know Madison doesn’t have exactly the program you wanted, but they said they could work with you. And if you’re in New York, we’ll never see each other. I thought we were going to stick together.”  
I crumpled and slumped against the window. This was way, way, way too hard. I’d read somewhere that animals would chew off their own leg to get out of a t rap. I knew exactly what that felt like now. I stared out at the glare of a streetlamp and felt my throat clog up. I turned my head so he couldn’t see the tears, but I couldn’t stop my shoulders from shaking.  
“Zayn, come on!” He shifted over and tried to pull me into a hug, but I resisted, clinging up against the window like I was stuck on it with suction cups. He stopped pulling and just left his hand on my shoulder.  
“If this is about tonight, I’m sorry. I really thought you needed my help.” His voice cracked. “You just don’t get it!” I said, loudly, my voice choked with tears. “I have to get away from  
you!”  
I looked at him then. His face was slack and white, shocked. “Why? Why do you have to get away from me? We’re best friends.”  
I took a deep breath and turned toward him. I wiped my face and then grasped both his hands in mine. I had to make him understand.  
“No, Liam. That’s what I am to you. I’m your best friend. But that’s not what you are to

me.”

He shook his head in denial.  
“What you are to me is the guy that I’ve been madly in love with since sixth grade. You’re

the guy I think about every night when I’m in bed by myself. You’re the one who doesn’t want me but insists on keeping me tied so close that I can’t have anyone else, who keeps one hand on my collar and the other hand up his girlfriend’s skirt. And I can’t do it anymore!”  
“Zayn….” His lips quivered, and his eyes grew bright. I felt like I’d swallowed ground glass, there was such a painful lump in my throat. I could see how much that hurt him. But I guess I was like a cornered wolverine at that point. I had to get it through his head.  
He reached out and touched my cheek. “You know that’s not fair.” “Don’t touch me!” I yelled. I batted his hand away.  
“Why are you so upset?” he asked miserably. “Zayn, please. I’ve always been up front with you.”  
I shut my eyes. That stung. Because he had, and that just made the hope I’d kept inside me all these years even more feeble. “I know that,” I said. “You’ve been a fucking prince. Look, you’re a great person, Liam, and a fantastic friend, you really are. It’s not your fault that you’re straight. But I need to get over you. And I can’t do that without putting some space between us. Please, please understand.”  
He looked down at my hands and gripped them tighter. His face wavered on the line between desperation and despair. I hated seeing him like that. I could have gone happily to my grave never seeing that look on Liam Payne’s face.  
“Just tell me how to fix it, Zayn. You want to date other guys? I’ll throw a party and put up flyers in all the gay clubs. You want to get a separate room at Madison so you can have men over? Okay. Just don’t throw out everything we are to each other. Please.”  
I leaned back against the door, suddenly exhausted. “Just take me home, okay?”  
He drove me home. We didn’t talk all the way back. I thought about what he’d said. Don’t throw out everything we are to each other. It hurt so fucking bad, it was ripping me apart. I wished that were possible, but wasn’t that what we’d been doing since forever? Me taking what he could give me and accepting what he couldn’t? And here I was, my senior year, still desperately in love with him, no matter how much I tried not to be. And there he was, following me to gay clubs like my own personal ass chastity belt. It just wasn’t working anymore.  
He was shaking when he parked in my driveway—literally, his teeth were chattering. I don’t think I’d ever seen him so messed up. He shut off the engine and started to reach for his door handle, but I stopped him with a hand on his arm.  
“Don’t come in. Not right now.”  
He nodded and just stared out the front windshield.  
“Thank you for helping me tonight. I… just thanks.” I got out of the car.

**************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

Liam

THANKFULLY, my parents were gone for the weekend. I didn’t know how I could have explained what I looked like when I came in if they hadn’t been. I chugged a bottle of beer left over from a summer party, and then I lay on my bed in the dark.  
My mom has this saying—sometimes you need to break a few eggs to make an omelet. That night I felt like someone had placed every egg in my carton onto a wrestling mat, smashed them with a baseball bat, and then pissed on them.  
Zayn. My Zayn. He was going to New York without me. I’d never felt such a deep sense of loss and panic in my life. I still couldn’t fully comprehend it. It was weird. I think there are some things we just can’t wrap our brain around, like dogs sitting up and talking to you or the sun falling down and landing like a big glowing volleyball in your yard. Life without Zayn was like that.

What did he want from me? I’d given him everything I possibly could, put him above everyone else in my life—my folks, my brother, Emily, everyone. I gave him affection. I gave him support, even when nobody in my life wanted me to. I gave him all my spare time. I would die for him. But the one thing I couldn’t give him was the one thing he’d decided he couldn’t live without. And the most ridiculous, fucked-up part of it was, I wanted it, too.  
I was so tired of fighting it. I was tired of touching Emily and thinking about Zayn. I was tired of pretending I didn’t want him, even to myself.  
I thought about it all the time, like some endless rerun—the way he had touched me, licked me, his completely unguarded and enthusiastic lust, the way he’d worshipped my body like it was everything he’d ever wanted, the look on his face as he’d touched himself and came all over me. God! The more I thought about it, the more I craved it. There’d been so many times when I’d caught him looking at me when we were alone, and I’d come so close to caving. But the fear of what it would mean stopped me.  
I couldn’t have Zayn like that unless I was willing to go all the way and admit that I was, at the very least, bisexual. I would have to do right by him.  
It was like I was juggling a dozen knives—keep Emily happy when I really didn’t want to be with her, keep Zayn happy when he really wanted to be with me, keep coach happy, the team happy, my folks happy by obeying the rules. I was sick to death of it.

CRYING is a useless waste of time. I turned on my light and got up. I took a notebook out of my backpack and turned to a fresh page, sat down at my desk in my briefs. I drew a node at the top and curved a line down to the left. Path A, the path I’d been on all my life. I jotted a list at the end of the line.  
College wrestling, UW Badgers (full scholarship) High school or college wrestling coach  
Married with kids  
I looked at the list. It all seemed so obvious, so who I was. And it was a good life, maybe a great one, one I looked forward to, one that would be smooth sailing, one my family would be proud of. I’d be a hero. The thing is, once I got my teeth in something, I never gave up. The papers called me “tenacious.” All I’d ever wanted in life was to have two things, just two— wrestling and Zayn Malik. I was determined to hang on to both no matter what the cost. But I finally got it—if I wrestled, Zayn would not be in that life.  
Oh, we’d still be friends. But Zayn would go to school in New York. He’d meet a guy and be dating. Maybe he’d get married at some point—it was legal in New York. Or maybe he’d go through a crazy string of lovers. But he’d be in that life without me. We’d see each other when we came home for holidays, maybe visit each other once in a while. It was hard to see me visiting Zayn at an apartment he shared with his boyfriend, or Zayn coming to stay with me and my wife. We’d grow apart. He’d become a comic book artist, and I’d follow his blog and buy all his comics, and maybe he’d watch my wrestling on some remote channel of ESPN.  
That was the cost of the road my life was taking. Even if there was a college wrestling team that would let me compete if I were gay, no one wants a homosexual man coaching young boys, especially not in wrestling.  
I went back to the node and drew a line that curved out to the right side of the page. My hand was shaking. I drew a circle at the end of the line, and I stared at it.  
I had never thought too hard about what a life without wrestling would look like. I finally jotted some words down.  
Degree in English or Creative Writing (no scholarship=student debt) Write for comics with Zayn—or—teach English  
Be with Zayn  
I stared at it for a long time. I tried to imagine that other life, the one where Zayn and I lived in New York City and were together. In that life I was not a star wrestler, just a big, beefy

Scandinavian-looking dude getting a degree in English, one of millions of guys my age to do so. I really liked inventing stories and writing them. Zayn had brought out a lot of that in me. But I knew it was a much tougher path to success. And in that life, I would hurt my family. I didn’t think they’d turn their backs on me, but it would hurt them. My dad would not be proud of me like he was now, and my mom and Charlie wouldn’t know what to think of me anymore.  
The thing that was so weird was that, if I had never met Zayn, I would have been perfectly happy with the life behind door number one. I don’t get my sexuality. Maybe it would take a team of head-shrinks to figure me out. I liked girls okay and not many guys did a thing for me. But Zayn, he pressed all my buttons.  
Maybe I was a really picky gay guy? Maybe I was bi. Maybe I was Zayn-sexual. Maybe I just thought Zayn was sexy because I loved him so much. The point is, I probably wouldn’t have even thought about being gay if it weren’t for him. Maybe I never would have been happy in a normal marriage. Maybe I’d have met some guy when I was forty and had a midlife crisis. Or maybe I would have met the girl that made me crazy about breasts and vaginas. I’d never know.  
I looked at the lists for a long time. I got on Google and looked at images of NYU. I even looked up NYU’s wrestling team just out of curiosity. They were one of the thirty-two schools that had sent me an offer letter, even though I’d never applied, but I’d barely glanced at it. On their website I saw they were twenty-eighth in their division last year, and their top guy ranked was number seven in individual rankings. Not even close to the Badgers but not terrible.  
Not that it really mattered. They wouldn’t want a gay wrestler.  
I realized I was actually considering it, this alternate life in New York. And I was swamped with a sense of terror. The idea of giving up the incredible opportunity wrestling had given me, that I’d worked at for years… it was enough to make me want to throw up.  
The light of dawn was just starting to spread through my bedroom window when I finally lay down. I had an idea. I scooted over on my bed and rolled onto my side. I closed my eyes and reached my hand out to touch the place in the bed next to me.  
No matter what you do with your life during the day, there’s always that moment when you have to wake up with yourself, with yourself and with the person that’s sleeping beside you. That’s the person that you make a home with, discuss life’s big decisions with, share your finances, eat, shop, maybe parent with. That’s the person you share your body with forever, kiss, touch, the one you sit on the couch with and watch movies, the one who gives you a hug when you’ve had a rough day. That’s the person you put up a Christmas t ree with and arrive home with for the holidays, the person you watch grow old and who still loves you when you’re not as nice to look at, the one who holds your hand when you’re dying. And none of that had anything to do with wrestling.  
I touched the covers and closed my eyes.

Zayn

SOMEONE was banging on our front door. I hoped my mom would answer it already. I’d hardly slept the night before for worrying, and I wanted nothing more than to sink back into sweet oblivion and escape reality for a few hours more. The banging finally stopped, only to be taken up, a moment later, on my bedroom door. The door opened.  
“Zayn?”  
It was Liam. I looked at the clock. “Tell me you’re not waking me up at 7 a.m. on a Sunday.”  
He came over and sat on the bed. “Sorry.”  
I started to fall back asleep. He rubbed my shoulder. “Hey. My folks are gone ’til tonight. Will you come over?”  
“Now?”

“Yeah.” He kept rubbing my shoulder. I frowned and squinted up at him. “I need to talk to you. Please.”  
His face was serious, but not in a bad way like the night before. There was an excited calm about him. He looked into my eyes as his thumb rubbed my shoulder. He looked at my mouth. I felt a wave of heat roll over in my gut. I glared at him. “What?”  
He smiled a lit t le. “Come on, doofus. Get up and throw on a pair of jeans. You can sleep at my house if you want.”  
He stood up, picked up a pair of jeans and tossed them at me. He took a sweatshirt out of the closet and threw it on the bed.  
“Somebody’s caught a case of the bossy flu,” I grumbled, but I sat up. There was something about the way he was acting. As determined as I had been to pull away last night, I found my resistance was lacking this morning. Maybe it was in the half of my brain that was still asleep.  
I pulled on my clothes. I went to the bathroom and brushed my teeth. I looked at myself in the mirror for a minute. I silently told myself to be strong.  
We pulled up at Liam’s house ten minutes later.  
“Do you want coffee?” he asked me, as we walked into his kitchen.  
“If you’ll let me go back to sleep, no. If you have any other plans whatsoever, yes.”  
He gave me a funny look and started the coffee maker. I sat down in one of the dinette chairs and looked blearily at the pool out back. I put my head on my arms and maybe fell asleep.  
He touched my hand and slid a cup of coffee into it . I raised my head, blinked.  
“Hey, my folks aren’t due home ’t il late. If you want to go back to sleep I can wait a few hours.” He tucked some hair behind my ear.  
His touch felt… different. I looked up at him in surprise and then down at the coffee cup. “I’m good,” I said stupidly. I drank the coffee. I was confused, and he hadn’t even said  
anything yet. But suddenly, my heart was beating faster, and I was wide awake.  
I took a few sips, and then he took my hand and led me into the living room and over to the sofa. I stood there looking at him, coffee cup in one hand, his hand holding my other.  
I looked down at our joined hands. “What are you doing, Liam?”   
“Sit down.”  
I pulled my hand away and sat. I took another sip, eyeing him warily. He sat down close to me and looked at his hands in his lap.  
“Zayn, last night you made me see how hard this has been on you—us. Me. Emily. I’m sorry, and I want to change it . I hope you’ll give me a chance to change it .”  
I couldn’t imagine what he was talking about. “You can’t change it .”  
He took my hand again and pulled it into his lap. He held it in both of his. “I’ve already talked to Emily this morning. I told her it was over between us. Zayn, I want….” He swallowed. “I want to be with you.”  
I wasn’t able to process what he was saying. It was like he was speaking in Klingon or something. I stared at him.  
“I don’t want to lose you, Zayn. We’ll be together, everything you want .”  
I sputtered. “Have you been infected by an alien brain virus?” I thought about it . “Wait, have I?”  
“Zayn—”  
“You can’t just have sex with me to keep me around. You’re not gay! That’s like me trying to have sex with Emily.”  
He laughed and pulled my hand in tighter so it was against his chest. “I promise you, it ’s not. I’m not as straight as everyone thinks I am. I think about that night we were together all the time. All the time, Zayn.”  
His eyes were hot with something I’d never seen in them before. But I had a hard t ime allowing myself to believe it . Because I’d been there all, oh, three-hundred-and-some fricking days since that night, and he’d never acted like he wanted me. I shook my head.

“God, Zayn! The only thing that’s kept my hands off you for the past year has been knowing, knowing, that if we were together I’d have to give up wrestling. You don’t know what it was like for me when you came out. People acted like it was a cardinal sin that I had a friend who was gay, but everyone, everyone, made it absolutely clear that I’d better not be gay myself or my career was over. I had to stay with Emily, and I had to stay away from you.”  
What he was saying sank into me slowly. He’d wanted to do it again?  
Of course, I guess I’d always known that if Liam had been gay, the wrestling would have been difficult to impossible. But he wasn’t gay so that was a moot point. Unless it wasn’t.  
He was rubbing my hand with his thumb. He raised it to his mouth and kissed my palm. The feel of his lips was like a zap of heat straight to my dick, but I snatched my hand away and scrambled backward on the couch.  
“Liam, stop it . You just said it yourself—you can’t give up wrestling, so what’s the point?”  
He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and unfolded it , put it down on the coffee table with a slam of his palm. “Yes. I can.”  
I looked at it . A wrestling career and marriage were on one side. On the other side was an English degree—and me. My heart started to pound. I felt scared, really scared, at the magnitude of what that sheet of paper represented. I’d sat in those bleachers watching Liam become a star for the past six years. I knew he lived and breathed it . It was way bigger than me, maybe bigger than both of us.  
“That’s not fair to you,” I whispered.  
He scooted toward me until our knees were touching. He took my face in his hands and made me look at him.  
“Listen,” he said. His eyes were rock steady on mine. “I. Love. You. Thinking about you with someone else… it makes me certifiable. I… I wanted to kill that guy last night. And then you told me you were moving to New York…. I’ve thought about a life without you, Zayn, and I don’t care how many damn championships there are in it , I don’t want that life.”  
“But—”  
“I don’t want that life.”  
I was shaking. Somewhere deep in my lizard brain hope was waking up and unfurling and sniffing at the air tentatively. But I was also terrified. I didn’t know if this was the best of all possible outcomes or the worst. Possibly it was both.  
“I want to be with you, you and me, together, as a couple,” he said, using his absolutely committed-Liam-Payne voice. “Because that’s for the rest of our lives. And that’s more important to me than anything else. I can live without wrestling.”  
“Oh, God,” I whispered. “But it ’s your gift. You’ve worked so hard for it .”  
“I have worked hard for it . But you, Zayn….” He pulled my hand to his chest, as if willing me to hear him. “You are my gift .”  
I was in a complete brain freeze. I wanted to believe him, but I wasn’t sure I should. What kind of person would I be if I let Liam give up his dreams? Even if he did want me like he said he did, and I was still totally on the fence about that one, at some point he’d hate me for taking away his big shot. Wouldn’t he?  
“Say yes, Zayn,” he said, shifting closer. “No,” I said.  
Liam smiled. “Close enough.” And then he kissed me.  
His lips were soft on mine, gentle. I told myself I should pull away, really I did, but it probably would have required a team of wild horses and a shot of Thorazine. Liam Payne was kissing me.  
All the things he’d said were rattling around in my brain, and I knew the discussion was far from over. But as he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me against his chest, all warm and safe and stronger than a mighty locomotive, and as he teased my lips with slow, sucking kisses, everything faded away except for one bright shining thing: he wanted me.  
Okay, two, two bright shining things: he wanted me and… he was really getting into kissing me.  
I was frozen in a state of shock for about a minute as he softly kissed and gently sucked

at my lips—slow and sweet and sensual. I didn’t kiss him back even as my body went wild internally, blood being police escorted to certain extremities, endorphins diving out of my pituitary gland like they were in a Busby Berkeley musical, my heart going all heavy metal.  
Then I snapped with the program. I made an embarrassingly loud animal sound and scrambled into his lap, my knees going wide around his hips. I grabbed his head, tilt ed my own and kissed him. This time, I was taking no prisoners. I pressed my tongue along his lips and tongue, opening him up and kissing him deep and wet and erotic, the way I’d dreamed of doing a million times.  
He made a yummy sound deep in his chest and pulled me tighter. One hand went to my lower back and one between my shoulder blades. He pressed me sweetly but firmly against him. God, Liam had never touched me like this before. The combination of gentleness and power in that restrained touch was like gasoline on my electrical fire. I could feel that he was hard. I could feel the trembling passion and desperation in his kiss. More than anything he’d said, or ever could say, that made me believe him—Liam wanted me. My heart exploded like a bottle rocket.  
Because if Liam really, truly wanted me, then pigs could fly, I’d get my window desk at DC, and life could be unbearably fucking wonderful.  
He tugged at the hem of my sweatshirt. I broke the kiss only long enough to pull it over my head. Back to kissing, then I tugged blindly on his shirt—I had to feel him. His T-shirt came off with a yank and our mouths locked back together. My bare chest pressed against his chest. Good God, just shoot me now if anything could ever get better than being pressed against that gorgeous chest and abs. I squirmed in tighter. He pulled me closer. I could feel his erection in my crotch. I was hard down the right leg of my jeans so I couldn’t really rub it against him, but I didn’t care. I rocked on top of him, just getting off on feeling him like that, on stroking him with my ass. Now that I had him, I couldn’t get enough.  
“Zayn, we should—” he said, trying to pull out of the kiss. I kept sucking off the syllables.   
My hands were roaming over the sides of his ribs. I was in an ecstasy of skin and muscle. He tried to push me up.  
“Bedroom. I want you naked,” he rasped out, even as my hands locked on his neck and I kept kissing him.  
“No.” The transition period to get from here to there was unthinkable. He might as well have been talking about traveling to another galaxy and entering deep stasis. I wasn’t stopping.  
So he pushed up and slung me over his shoulder. Crap, he was strong. He headed for the stairs.  
“I swear to God, Liam, if you sprain your back in the next twenty seconds and we end up in the ER instead of in bed, I will disembowel you!”  
He laughed. “Believe me, not even a herniated disc would make me stop now.”  
“Let’s not test that theory, shall we?” I had the advantage of ungainly limbs. I wriggled until he put me down. We raced each other up the stairs, which is not as much fun as it sounds with a raging hard-on.  
In his bedroom we both shucked our jeans and underwear like they were on fire. I stopped and stared at him.  
Holy Greek gods, Batman. Liam had bulked up more this past year, but it was all muscle. He looked like a figure from a naughty version of Mt. Olympus standing there, with his broad shoulders and carved pecs, rounded thighs and erection curving up toward his stomach. He was looking at me with as much hunger as I felt. Self-consciously I put my arms across my chest.  
He came over and pulled them away. “Zayn, you are perfect. I can’t imagine wanting anyone the way I want you.”  
“Male or female?” I asked doubtfully. “Uh-huh. And vegetable or mineral.”  
“Glad to hear I can out-sex zucchini,” I quipped nervously. “Don’t forget the pumice,” he teased.

He stepped very, very close to me but not quite touching, so that his erection just gently brushed against mine. He t railed the t ips of his fingers softly up my bare sides and stared into my eyes with a slightly amused, not so slightly heated look. Oh, God, Liam looking at me like that. It was like I’d hit the fantasy jackpot, and all the nice shiny coins were pouring out. A shiver shook my whole body.  
“Shut up, Zayn,” I told myself, and I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him.

Liam

HOW could something feel so scarily new and exciting and yet so familiar and inevitable at the same time? Zayn was a fantastic kisser. The way he sucked and licked at my mouth like he was starving for it—it was nearly enough to send me over the edge right there. And then there was the feel of him in my arms, not tiny and soft like Emily, no, he was warm and solid and lit he and strong and all boy. I could crush him against me, press him tight. It felt so exactly right.  
The feeling of his hardness against me fascinated me—the heft of it , the way it so clearly showed his desire, the way I could make him groan and squirm by pressing against it just so. Jesus. Everything about him turned me on so much. For years I’d been fighting a physical attraction to him, telling myself it wasn’t there. Now that I’d surrendered to it , need crashed through me like a herd of elephants escaping the circus. My body vibrated with the thunder of it . Zayn.  
I pressed him back against the bed. I wanted badly to climb on top of him, but first I had to explore, touch him, kiss him, the way I hadn’t allowed myself to do last time. I needed it . I crouched over him on all fours. When he bowed up to meet my mouth, I pressed him back down with a forearm across his upper chest and pinned him there.  
“Bastard,” he said, squirming, still trying to kiss me, even though he wasn’t even close.  
“I seem to recall someone licking me to within an inch of my life,” I countered, as I tongued a long path up his chest and across one nipple.  
“Hngh. I want….” lick. “Wanna hold you.” swirl. “Liam, please!”  
“Mmmm,” I said neutrally as I licked and kissed my way down his flat stomach. I loved the tone of his body, so lean and sleek and tight, his skin so soft. It drove me crazy.  
He gave up struggling against my forearm and started thrusting up his hips instead, seeking contact. Naughty. I pinned his upper thigh down with my thigh, t rapping him down on the bed.  
“Oh, God,” he groaned, “I’m having sex with a wrestler. Not fair.”  
“Mmmm,” I agreed as I nibbled and sucked at the soft skin of his belly. Oh, yes. This was good. This freaking rocked. I loved that I could hold him down, be just rough enough to excite us both, that I didn’t have to be careful with him physically, and that he knew me well enough that I could be exactly myself.  
I nuzzled all over his chest and belly, using the scratch of my stubble to rasp and sensitize along with the long licks and soft nibbles. He couldn’t move, but his erection, hard and huge from this close, pulsed as if trying to get my attention and dribbled onto his belly. To say I was ignoring it would be a lie—I kept an eye on it , letting the sight thrill me. But I didn’t touch it , not yet.  
“I’m sensing a need to discuss tournament rules in bed,” Zayn gasped shakily, as I nuzzled into the crease between his leg and his groin. He was trembling with frustration and desire.  
Time for a strategic repositioning. I moved my forearm and grabbed both his wrists so I could hold them firm at his sides on the bed. I moved over him and pressed both of his thighs apart and then pinned his calves to the mattress with my thighs. Holding him that way, he could bow up his upper back and arch his hips a lit t le but was otherwise immobile. Perfect. I kissed his legs.

“Rule number one: No rules,” I said. I sucked at his inner thighs.  
“Oh my God,” Zayn groaned. “Please, Liam, I’ve waited for this so long, and I need you.  
Please, please, please, please, please.”  
He sounded so gut-wrenchingly sincere. It made a fresh wave of lust slam into me. But I wasn’t giving up ground, not yet. He made needy sounds as I licked and nuzzled at his balls, remembering how incredibly hot that had felt when he did it to me. I loved the texture there, it felt sort of dirty and taboo and yet so nakedly human and Zayn. He was grunting out a steady stream of huhs now as I licked and sucked at him. I shifted up a bit so I could run my tongue up his erection. I had no plans to get fancy, given that I had no clue what I was doing. I just wanted to see what it was like, get up close and personal with it .  
I was bigger than Zayn. Where I was compact and solid, he was lanky, with small hands and feet and a really big dick. He had a slight curve toward his belly. He was circumcised, like me, and his skin had a sweet pink tinge. I rubbed my cheek against him and closed my eyes, letting the idea and reality of it sink into me. I was not repulsed or even uneasy with it . Zayn was like the other half of me in some ways, so it was no odder than masturbating. In fact, it felt incredible to be with him like this. I wanted everything about him, every part of him appealed to me. And this particular part was pure, naked, swollen, and aching sex. I licked the head and pulled it into my mouth. I let go of one of his wrists so I could stroke him.  
Zayn’s freed hand threaded into my hair and stayed there as I sucked him. I didn’t try to take in much, just stayed at the top, alternating sucks and licks as my hand stroked the base of him. His breathing became more and more ragged, and mine did, too. It was so hot to me, what I was doing, that my own dick throbbed and pulsed in sympathetic responses to the sensations I imagined I was creating for him. I slipped my thighs off him so I could lay down between his legs, giving my own erection contact with the bed. The hand that still held one of Zayn’s wrists loosened, and Zayn rotated his wrist and interfaced his fingers with mine, gripping me t ight as if hanging on. His hips started surging rhythmically.  
“Oh, God, Liam. Oh, fuck, that feels so good,” he whispered. His hips thrust faster.  
Suddenly, he moved his hand from my head to my shoulder, trying to push me away as he partially sat up. “Stop!”  
I pulled off and looked up at his face. I was so close and so dazed with lust I had no idea why he’d stopped  
“Come up here,” Zayn said, licking his lips. “I want to come while you’re kissing me. I want you on top.”  
Hell, yes. I moved up and over him and lay down, holding a lit t le weight off him on my elbows. But he tugged me down hard, arching up to meet my mouth.  
God, the feeling of him naked underneath me, pressed against me chest to thigh. He kissed me deep, sending warm waves shooting down my body. He wrapped his arms around my ribs. His legs came up to lock around the tops of my thighs. The t ilt in his hips brought us fully into contact. I could feel his ridge against mine, his balls against mine. The sensation drove another spike of lust through me, stoked higher by the way he licked and sucked at my tongue. Oh, crap. I was down, and the ref was slamming the mat in a countdown in my head. I was going.  
I started thrusting. At the top of my thrust, my head swept over the underside of his. He grunted.  
“Want lotion?” he panted, taking his lips briefly from mine. His hips kept thrusting. I was so close, and we were both a lit t le slick. The frict ion felt good.  
“Huh-uh,” I muttered incoherently, latching back onto his lips. I locked onto the thrusts and went for it . I grabbed his shoulders so we didn’t t ravel up the bed, held him steady as we both rocked.  
For a while we skated along the edge of the cliff. It felt so amazing I wanted it to last forever. When I felt myself about to go over I raised my head. His eyes were shut t ight. “Zayn, look at me.”  
He did, his wide, brown eyes staring up into mine, his mouth open and panting. His face was tensed on the brink as I went over. The words I love you fell from me on a groan as I started to come. My vision went a lit t le black around the edges, I came so hard, but I stayed

focused on his face, watching as his upper lip quivered and curled up as if in pain. He thrust faster.  
“Liam!” he called out as he went rigid and pulsed against my belly.  
I felt his warm come join mine between us. It was like the time we’d cut our fingers as kids and held them together—blood brothers. Only this time it was a different commitment, this time it said, I’m yours and you are mine.

AFTERWARD, we lay on our sides, and I held him tight. It felt so right having him in my arms. I couldn’t believe that I’d resisted for so long. I wasn’t sure if the power of what I felt was because of the connection I had with Zayn or if it was about my sexual orientation. It didn’t matter, I decided. Because I knew one thing for absolute certain. I was never going to let him go.  
His voice wafted up, muffled from my chest. “So… gay sex,” he said dryly.  
I chuckled. “For three hundred? ‘In order to have pleasurable anal sex, male couples should use what substance?’”  
Zayn laughed. “Thanks, Alex. You shouldn’t even know that. You’ve been holding out on

me.”

“I might have done some Googling here and there.”  
He squeezed me t ighter and didn’t respond for a moment. “Seriously.”  
“Seriously….” I rubbed his back. “Best ever. Award winning. I told you, Zayn. It ’s you and

me, for keeps. I can’t see wanting to be with anyone else ever again.”  
Zayn raised his head to look at me, his face scrunched up with doubt. I saw hurt in his eyes, and I knew what he was thinking about. I thought about all the times he’d had to sit and watch me kissing on Emily, knowing that we were intimate. How would I have felt if our positions had been reversed? I’d hated it when he’d been dinking around with Matt, and that was only for a few weeks and out of my sight. God, I’d been so focused on doing what I thought I needed to do, I’d been oblivious to the damage I’d caused.  
I tucked some curls behind his ear.  
“Sorry about Emily,” I said. “I’ll never do that to you again, Zayn.”  
“If you keep tucking my hair behind my ears, the deal is off,” Zayn said, smacking his hair back into disarray, but he looked thoughtful. “Are you sure you want to do this? I don’t blame you if you don’t .”  
“Yes.” I gave him my one-hundred-proof stare.  
He sighed and laid his head down on my chest. “Good, because I suck at being selfless. I’m sure it ’ll be great once we get past, oh, the next two years or so.”  
I sighed. “About New York…. You know, NYU sent me one of those offer letters for a wrestling scholarship.”  
“They did?” Zayn said, looking up abruptly.  
I shrugged. “Yeah, but that was before. If I don’t wrestle, I won’t be able to get into a school there until next year, because I didn’t apply to any.”  
“We could go to Madison,” Zayn said.  
“No, the School of Visual Arts is a better school for you, and one of us is going to have to be hugely successful and make money.” I smiled sadly. “Besides, I’m not sure I want to be at Madison if I can’t wrestle. That would suck.”  
Zayn suddenly sat up. He got out of bed, naked as the day he was born, and went over to my desk. He fished around in the drawer while I enjoyed the view. He really did have a nice ass. In fact my dick made a pathetic attempt at a show of interest. What did that mean? Did the fact that his ass turned me on mean I wanted to fuck him?  
A thought to explore another day, maybe. He pulled out a red folder that held all my offer letters. He brought it over to the bed and sat down, cross-legged, placing the folder on the sheets and opening it .

If this was the kind of view I was going to be getting the rest of my life, it was so worth it . “How many offer letters are there in here?” he asked, paging through them.  
“Huh? Oh. Thirty-two.”  
“Right .” He looked determined. “You’re going to call every single one of these coaches and see if any of them have the balls to bring in a bi wrestler.”  
“Gay,” I said. “That’s the way they’ll see it.”  
“Tell ’em you’re bi. It ’ll make them feel a lit t le less alienated if they think you can relate to the whole vagina thing. After all, you did have a girlfriend for the past two years, so it’s t rue.”  
I grunted. “It doesn’t matter. All they’re going to care about is that I like cock.”  
“It ’s not your fault you have impeccable taste,” Zayn quipped. “I’m serious, Liam. Your high school career has been fucking outstanding. There has to be one of these schools that’d be happy for the chance to snatch you up. I mean, who really cares who you’re sleeping with?”  
“It matters,” I said quietly.  
He held the sheaf of papers up, his face determined. “We’re going to fight for this. Come, on, Pin Man. Show me what you’ve got .”  
I flipped the sheet aside.  
Zayn chuckled. “I mean here.” He tapped my chest. “And here.” He tapped my head. “Oooh, hollow.”  
“Douchebag.”  
He grew serious. “You don’t intend to come out at school, right? I mean we’ve only got six weeks left. No point in rocking the boat .”  
The thought was sobering. I put my hands behind my head. “If I’m calling college coaches and discussing it , it may get out. For sure I have to talk to my folks. Plus, it seems dishonest that we’d pretend to just be friends, and then we graduate and—wham. Like we’d been lying the whole time”  
“Yeah, but they’ll think that anyway, and we don’t ever have to see these people again.” I shrugged. “That’s burning a lot of bridges.”  
“I think being with me already napalmed them, sorry.”  
I thought about it . “Besides, if we’re honest and take a stand, we have a chance to do a bit of good before we leave. Set a precedent .”  
Zayn groaned. “Sometimes your tendency for moral rectitude is downright annoying.” “This is a mutual decision, Zayn.”  
“So I can vote for being a chickenshit?” Zayn raised his hand with a hopeful look.  
I laughed. “Well, if that’s the kind of person you want to be…,” I said, faking a disappointed tone.  
“Shut up.”  
He was quiet for a minute. “I can’t stand the thought of going to school and seeing everyone treat you like an outcast. I mean, they know I’m gay, it doesn’t matter. But for you, Liam…. You’re a celebrity. It ’s going to be like Prince William being arrested for pedophilia.”  
“You do look awfully young.” I took his hand and squeezed it . I tried not to show how much the fear and anxiety were already eating at my gut. “If we’re being honest, then, yeah, it ’s going to suck donkey ass. But we’ll get to the other side, and we’ll be together.”  
A thought suddenly occurred to me. I sat up and looked Zayn in the eye. “That is what you want, isn’t it? For us to stay together? Because if it ’s not, now would be a really good t ime to tell me.”  
Zayn flopped back on the bed with a sigh. He looked up at the ceiling. I waited. He turned his head to look at me. “There are only two big dreams I’ve ever had for my life.” He crooked a sad smile at me. “And being with you, Liam Payne, has always been one of them.”


	8. Epilogue: Sophomore Year of College

Zayn

LIAM pinned his opponent, a large red-haired guy from Oklahoma. The crowd stood up and roared. The ref grabbed Liam’s wrist and held it up. Liam blinked away his intense focus, looked up at me in the stands and smiled.  
Damn, he looked fine in that burnt orange and black singlet with the big white W on his chest. As it was wont to do, my heart did a happy lit t le squiggle in my chest before flopping over and surrendering in a puddle of goo.  
Was I the luckiest guy in the world, or what?  
I was standing and waving my arms and hooting, careful not to bash Liam’s mom in the head. The LGBT contingency down the bleachers from me, who’d been rabid supporters of Liam since day one, were standing up and going bonkers. Liam was the first openly bi wrestler UW Madison had ever had. Not everyone was over the moon about it , as a few harsh editorials in the newspaper made clear, but the gay pride advocates on campus were fervently in the hot-diggity-damn camp.  
Both Liam and I were completely shocked that the UW Badgers had taken him after all. A lot of the schools he’d contacted had given him a cold “sorry, no.” But NYU had agreed to take him. The night they called we were over the moon. A day later, the UW Badgers coach had called. They still wanted Liam on the team.  
Both those coaches had, separately and with sizable contingencies, descended on Jefferson High like men in black before reaching a final decision. They’d seen Liam before, of course, but everything changed after that phone call. It was unusual for recruiters to be out that late; the wrestling season was over. But Liam’s teammate, Vince, had offered to get on the mat with him for a show bout. Those college coaches with their lawyers, assistant coaches, HR people, nose-wipers, and God knows who all else, had watched Liam and Vince wrestle their asses off, and they’d sat there, faces like stone. Both groups had asked to take Liam and me out to dinner afterward.  
There were a lot of blunt questions. How long had we been together? Was it serious? Did we intend to live together on campus? Were we monogamous?  
For the first time, I understood how Liam felt—no one had ever paid attention to me before. It was like being a bug pinned under a microscope. I sweated buckets. I wanted things to work out for Liam so badly. I didn’t want to be the reason why he couldn’t wrestle. Liam just held my hand firm in his and answered everything head-on. I told them what a star Liam was and that they’d be lucky to have him. Liam told them we were for keeps. He surprised me the first time by pulling my portfolio, which I didn’t even know he had, from his duffle bag.  
“Zayn’s an artist ,” he said proudly, placing it on the table. “He’ll be in the art department .” They flipped through it and said nothing, but I thought their eyes got a lit t le friendlier when they looked at me.  
I hadn’t expected any of this, but then, no one expects the Spanish Inquisition.  
The Badgers’ coach told us later how it had gone down. He and the assistant coaches had assembled the wrestling team in the locker room and rolled in a TV. They’d played a DVD of some of Liam’s more spectacular matches from the newsreels, cheering crowds and all. A number of the guys on the team then had been freshmen when Liam’s brother, Charlie, had been around doing some assistant coaching.Charlie had been respected, so they knew the Payne name.  
The coach rattled off Liam’s impressive state ranking from sixth grade through twelfth and added, “The kid has a 3.7 GPA and is vice president of his school’s anti-bullying club. Now. Who thinks he should be on the team?”  
Everyone raised their hands, looking confused since normally they had no say in recruiting and it sounded like a no-brainer.  
“He’s also bisexual, and he’ll be coming to UW with his long-time boyfriend, who’s going into the art department .” He let that sit. “Personally, I don’t give a rat’s ass what you all do outside this gym as long as you bring your A game when you’re on the floor. I think Liam will be an asset to this team. Raise your hand if you think there’s no place for him here.”  
Wrestlers started slowly putting up their hands. In the end there were ten hands raised.  
There were thirty-three wrestlers on the team. Liam was in.  
Liam wanted us to go to New York so I could get my cartooning degree. I insisted on Madison. It was a family tradition; he belonged there. We were surprised at how open the campus was. Even though Madison is surrounded by rural areas, the city itself is very progressive. There were a variety of LGBT support groups on campus and even a LGBT campus center in the union. With forty thousand students, it was big enough that not everyone knew or cared about your business anyway. There was even gay-friendly housing, which we got into with some help from the admissions department.  
Look, I won’t say it ’s been easy. There’s been plenty of ugliness. Liam has to work twice as hard as the other wrestlers to get respect, and occasionally there’ll be a wrestler who just refuses to wrestle him and concedes in protest. He’s gotten hate mail. It ’s unlikely he’ll be able to coach, so he works his ass off on his English degree. And I can’t even think about those last few weeks of our senior year without getting a flush of horror. Most of Liam’s friends, Vince being a surprising exception, turned on him. A lot of people acted like we’d been lying all the t ime, even though Liam told them how it was. There was a fistfight in the parking lot that scared the crap out of me. The other guy lost.  
Emily was great, though. She still sat by us at lunch and told anyone who would listen to fuck off. After that first lunch when she sat with us in a mind-boggling act of solidarity, I managed to get her alone and hug her.  
“I’m sorry,” I said. “You must feel like we stabbed you in the back.” “Yeah, Zayn, you man-stealing bitch.”  
I pulled back and looked at her in surprise. She rolled her eyes and sighed. “I’m not an idiot. I think I always knew. Liam and me, we never had what you guys did, even though I wanted us to.” She pulled away and smoothed her shirt. “God, I’m going to have such a gay guy complex.”  
“Added to a long list ,” I deadpanned.  
She snorted. “You’ve got that right .” She looked at me thoughtfully. “Think there’s any chance I might luck out and become a lesbian?”  
“It ’s never too late,” I said sincerely.

THE very worst, though, was telling Liam’s parents. Liam wanted to face them straight off, the very day we’d committed to being a couple. They came into the house that night, and Liam and I were standing in the living room, waiting for them. He held my hand.  
His mother looked at our hands, then up at our faces and started sobbing uncontrollably. “Liam…,” his dad said, half warning, half plea. His voice cracked.  
Liam dropped my hand and put his arm around my shoulder instead, drew me close. He was shaking, but his jaw was set.  
“Mom, Dad, I’m sorry if this hurts you, but Zayn and I are together. And nothing’s going to change that .”  
His mother ran sobbing up to her bedroom. And the look Liam’s dad gave me, I swear to God, you never want to be on the receiving end of a look like that. It was something like, you fucking faggot, you’ve ruined my brilliant son’s entire life, and I hope you rot in hell for it.  
Yeah. So it went like that.  
They’ve come around, mostly. I always go home with Liam for the holidays, and they even let us share a room. They’ve insisted I call them Mom and Dad. They’re t rying. The fact that Liam is still wrestling helps a lot. If Liam was the most astonished person in the world that the UW Badgers still wanted him, his dad was number two. And the fact that Liam has obvious supporters helps. But I know there’s a conservative nugget at the heart of his dad that’s ashamed about his famous gay son. He t ries hard not to show it , though. It is what it is.  
Last Christmas we were at Liam’s house. I was peeling potatoes with his mom in the kitchen when she started telling me a story.  
“When Liam was a baby, he was a big lit t le guy—ninety-seventh percentile for his age.” “Yeah?” I chuckled. I’d seen some pictures of baby Liam, and for sure, he’d been a bruiser. “Even when he was three months old… if he liked something you couldn’t get it away from him. He had this rattle, and boy, did he love that thing. He’d get the ring of it in his fist and you  
could not pry those baby fingers off it .” She was smiling at the memory, but her eyes were damp. She started to cry.  
I put down the peeler and went over to her. I felt a lit t le awkward—she’d been huggy with me when I was young, but not since I’d come out and certainly not since Liam and I had gotten together. I put a hand on her shoulder.  
“Mom, I’m sorry we disappointed you. I know this isn’t want you wanted for Liam.”  
She drew a deep breath and looked at me. “But that’s just it . It ’s what Liam wanted— since the day he met you, Zayn. And that’s what matters.” She put her arms around me and hugged me awkwardly. “I want you to know that we see what you boys have to put up with, the integrity it takes…. I guess what I’m t rying to say is, Liam was always my hero. And he still is.”  
I thought about that for a minute, about all that Liam was, about the t rue golden core of him. I thought about how he’d always stuck by me, no matter what. I thought about how brave he’d been when he put our relationship first, about how he went out on that gym floor at every UW match knowing there were people in the crowd who hated him. I thought about how he’d given up being perfect for being real. For us. For me.  
And I realized that Liam Payne was the greatest superhero ever. I hugged her back. “Mine too, Mom. Mine too.

**Author's Note:**

> THIS IS AN ADAPTATION, ALL CREDITS TO OWNER ELI EASTON, If you wanna know more about her work go to:
> 
> https://www.elieaston.com/
> 
> Thank you and hope you like it!!


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